HCM CITY – Recently, near HCM City’s Traumato Orthopaedics Hospital, a 46-year-old man with a bandaged foot, holding a basket of old clothes and health check-up notebook, was seen approaching patients.

He told them a tale of woe, looking for sympathy from patients and their relatives, and then asked them for money so he can go back to his hometown.

However, when the hospital security guard asked him to show his foot wound, it turned out to be fake. The man disappeared after that.

Soon after, when visiting an acquaintance at a general hospital in District 10, Huỳnh Ngọc Thành, head of the security team at Traumato Orthopaedics hospital met the man again. He was performing the same routine.

Seeing Thành, the man left quietly.                    

Doctor Nguyễn Đình Phú, deputy director of People 115 Hospital said that fraudsters often disguised themselves as doctors to swindle patients.

“Patients’ relatives said that a 40-year-old doctor came to patients’ beds and asked them about their health,” Phú said.

The doctor then promised he would help patients get quick treatment and asked them to pay him.

“Then the doctor disappeared,” Phú said.

According to Phú, the fraudsters disguise themselves in hospital uniforms.

“These people show up after working hours to avoid to be recognised,” Phú said.

Phú said that some fraudsters gave patients advice on their medicine, pretending to be worried about the medicine’s efficiency and recommending a better one.

The patients, hoping to be healed, did not hesitate to give the ‘doctors’ money for different medicine.

Võ Duy Thức, head of administrative management division of HCM City’s Tumor Hospital advised patients to check if the information in their doctor’s health insurance and check-up notebook matches their identification.

When meeting people asking for money, tell them to go to social affairs division of the hospital, Thức said.

Doctor Phú from People 115 hospital said that all medical staff and interns wear blouses with hospital logos on. Surgeries are on a schedule and patients cannot pay for early operations.

If they see suspicious doctors, patients should report them to security or nurses, he said. — VNS