Ho Chi Minh City Health Department inspectors inspect a local clinic that sells unlabeled medicine.

Doctors in Ho Chi Minh City are ripping off their patients by overcharging for medicines they are not authorized to sell.

When N.M.T. took his mother, who suffers from back pain, to Dr. Hoang Lan’s clinic in District 3, he was charged VND150,000 (US$9) for the examination and four doses of medicine, he told Thanh Nien.

“Things were the same when I took my mother there the second time,” T. said, adding that he had asked Lan to write a note so his mother’s cardiologists knew what other medicine she was using.

When his mother’s face started swelling a day later, T. took the note and the medicine to several pharmacies, who all told him the same thing – that although the note had the name of an expensive brand, the medicine he had bought was a cheap brand that should only cost VND6,000 (36 cents) for four doses.

T. returned to Lan’s clinic and the doctor apologized.

A doctor, identified as V.D.T., from Children Hospital No. 1 uses another trick. He sells medicine to patients butthe directions he writes to accompany the medicine is not written clearly enough, so the patients can’t tell which drug they have bought.

Klamentin, used to treat respiratory inflammation, costs VND13,000 (77 cents) a tablet if the drug is made overseas, more than three times the locally-produced brand.

Meanwhile, sabutamol, priced at VND200 (1 cent) a tablet, is often written to look like ventoline, a French-made drug priced at VND3,000 (18 cents) a tablet. Both treat respiratory conditions.

Many patients don’t know which medicine they are taking because the doctor removes most of the labels.

Dr. V.D.T. was punished by inspectors from the HCMC Health Department when they discovered many unlabeled medicines at his clinic.

He also used abbreviations like Ben for the anti-inflammatory Betalestin or AC for paracetamol.

An unnamed pharmacist in District 10 said he usually received prescriptions with abbreviations, leaving him to guess the drug names by reading some of their letters and asking the patients’ symptoms.

Many abbreviations are so difficult to figure out that the patients have nooption but to buy the medicine from the doctors or the drugstores the doctors have recommended, according to the pharmacist. “They will never know whether they are buying at a reasonable price then.”

Another doctor from a state hospital, who wanted to remain anonymous, said almost all doctors depended on the sale of drugs to boost their income, even though they are only authorized to examine the patients and write prescriptions. “The authorities know this but they ignore it and just impose a penalty when people complain too much.”

“Some doctors write beautifully but not when they prescribe and it’s not simply because they are in a rush,” said a private hospital doctor who did not wish to be named.

Pharmacist T. said he recently “surrendered” over a prescription of doctor N.T.T. in District 11, which includes the name “Ald 250.” “I have never seen that symbol in my dozens of years running a drugstore,” he said.

“It’s likely to be an antibiotic but I’m better off not selling anything. It’s dangerous.”

Patient N.V.T.B. could not find any pharmacy that could understand her doctor’s prescription.

According to Dr N.H. of People’s 115 Hospital, these doctors are violating medical regulations when giving prescriptions without the most necessary information. “It’s irresponsible and unfair to the patients.”

N.N.L., now working for a drugstore in Tan Binh District, said many patients went to hospitals to be examined but then had to run to drugstores to check the directions for taking the medicine.

“The doctors’ writing cannot be read and the hospitals’ drugstore workers just don’t have time to instruct,” she said.

Reported by Thanh Tung