The first report in Apple Daily on 20th July 2007 covered stories on 5 of our members whose practices situated in Kowloon City and Yaumatei. They experienced more or less the same degree of nuisance from the captioned gangs.
I was told that the patients¡¦ age range from 21 to 30 odd. They never showed their identifying documents on registration. They all came from mainland
Three of the doctors refused their request for reasons that (1) they would not give injection treatment for Urinary tract infection, or (2) they had tested the patients¡¦ urine in the clinic and could not detect any sign of Urinary tract infection. In these three situations, the ¡§patients¡¨ just disappeared out of a sudden, they did not take away any medication offered and as expected they did not pay at all.
While the remaining two, for one reason or the other, succumbed to the ¡§patients¡¦¡¨ requests and gave them one short of antibiotics, one being given to a lady of 21 years who has just disappeared from another member clinic nearby. You know what happens next. As in the incidents of ¡§Injection Gangs¡¨ from the North few years back, these patients would have the excuse to revisit the doctors¡¦ clinic daily after injection. They revisited the doctors telling them how severe side effects of painful, red to bluish swelling, with pus pouring out from an area of around the size of a palm in the ¡§injection¡¨ area they were suffering and made a remark that all these were induced by the doctors. However, one patient mistakenly showed the ¡§wound¡¨ on the side of the buttock which was not injected to the doctor and was caught red handed. The other guy was simply followed up by police and was told that he did not come back till now, not even daring to ask for money.
These happened within two to three days from 17th to 19th July 2007 and were settled quickly without any loss of money incurred to the doctors involved. The gist of the matter is that they phoned up our council members and our secretariat. Another case happened in Hung Hom in June 2007 when the police was called in to help the doctor after the Union was informed. The same story and with the same outcome, and the gang was defeated. We have thorough discussions with the police stations in Hung Hom, Kowloon City and Yaumatei and the police officers were so kind and cooperative to go to the affected clinics disguised as patients to protect the doctors. They were even kind enough to design a poster for us to put in our clinics. (Please refer to P. xx of this Bulletin).
With the help and understanding of the Police Department, with the quick reports from members and with our united action, we win over the ¡§Injection Gang¡¨ this time. This is not miracle but concerted effort after all.
However, when we looked at the second report in the Oriental on 24th July 2007 covering the issue of written order for Drug Purchase, we felt annoyed by the perseverance by some leaders of the profession and the naivety of the Department of Health on insistence of the captioned to prevent dispensing mishap.
You tell me! How can a written order for drug purchase help in safe dispensing to our patients if the type and quantity of drugs delivered might not even match with your written order? Even though I rarely made written order, occasionally I did and there were mistakes still committed by the delivery arms of the Pharmaceutical Industry. For a safe dispensing, the most important step is for us to double check on the drugs prepared by our clinic assistant or nurse before being delivered to our patients. The next important step would be the double check by ourselves on drugs delivered to our clinics and which we have ordered for our patients. We could not double check on drugs ordered but not delivered. There are of course other important steps too as advocated in the Good Dispensing Practice Manual (Manual) from the Hong Kong Medical Association.
Your council is totally aware of the naivety of the Department of Health on the captioned and is proactive in seeking your opinion by conducting a survey on the proposed measures in the Manual on 8th June 2007. There are responses from 149 members as at 5th July 2007 and result is printed on Page xx of this Bulletin. In the response to question 1 asking ¡§Do you agree that the ordering of drugs from suppliers should be made in writing?¡¨, OVER 96% of the responders DO NOT AGREE. This is immediately reflected to the Hong Kong Medical Association on 9th July 2007 with copies to the Chief Pharmacist of the Department of Health, members of the Pharmaceutical Industry, and our LegCo Representative. (Please refer to P. xx of this bulletin)
However, we are given to understand that the Department of Health, through her arm of Pharmacy and Poisons Board, sent a warning letter dated 9th July 2007 to the Pharmaceutical Industry on 10th July 2007 stating that ¡§¡K you are advised to implement, with immediate effect, measures such that only written purchase orders of pharmaceutical products are entertained (e.g. orders by fax, e-mail or post)¡Kto inform you that consideration is being given to including the above requirement as an additional condition subject to which your licence is renewed when it expires in 2008 and in subsequent years. ¡K¡¨ This high handedness is welcome by the Hong Kong Medical Association as reported in the Oriental on 24th July 2007 and yet we do not receive any reply from them. The local pharmaceutical industry is not going to oblige, how about you? Would you follow the recommendation in the Manual to order drugs from suppliers in writing?
We have been fighting for our rights 10 years back on the issue of Annual Declaration of No Conviction to apply for renewal of annual practicing certificate. We have a counter proposal at that time for only doctors to report conviction punishable with imprisonment within 28 days and accepted by the Medical Council of Hong Kong. This time your council would do the same, by putting forward a counter proposal of requiring doctors and pharmacists to do mandatory double checking and signing of all drugs purchased as in the case of Dangerous Drugs with attending Poison Forms. Let¡¦s see whether we can solve the problem more wisely and whether we can relief the hardship of our members on the captioned. Would the Department of Health be as friendly as that of the Police in Hong Kong?
Dr. Yeung Chiu Fat Henry