'Quack' Doctors Fill Clinics-Up to 70% of Bangkok's Clinics Employ Fake Doctors by Phairath Khampha 15 February 2002 Seeking medical treatment at a neighbourhood clinic in Thailand might prove risky to one's health as 70 per cent of clinics in Bangkok were found to have unqualified staff - including people posing as doctors - on duty, according to Thailand's Public Health Ministry. An inspection of 318 clinics turned up so-called doctors, nursing assistants and other staff with no formal medical education treating unsuspecting patients, said Dr Songyos Chaichana, director of the Bureau of Standards for Sanatoriums and the Art of Healing. Patients are fooled by fake medical certificates produced on computers. "To deceive patients, these clinics have put doctors' names in their place of business," he said, adding that the clinics without licensed practitioners were located in the suburbs. The agency had received a growing number of complaints from people harbouring doubts about the identity of clinic doctors and the agency's inspectors had been out every day investigating suspicious clinics, he said. "We're taking action against unlicensed doctors and have referred all cases to police," he said. Offenders convicted of practising medicine without a license could face a fine up to 60,000 baht (US$1,350) or imprisonment up to three years, or both. Considering that doctors who own private clinics can make that sort of money in one or two days it really is an insignificant penalty. And given how corrupt Thailand's justice system is, a bit of money is a quick medicine to cure all ills. Medical Council deputy |secretary-general Chumsak Pruksaphong said any licensed doctor found hiring quacks to work in their clinics would face disciplinary measure from the council as well. "We've suspended the medical licenses of many doctors already suspected of such allegations while they are awaiting trial," he said. The Medical Council had so far revoked the licenses of five doctors due to such charges, Chumsak said. Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan also instructed agencies to strengthen checks on medical facilities to protect patients from charlatans. "Most people will find it hard to tell if the doctors they meet in a clinic are actually licensed even if medical certificates are hanging in their office because those documents might be fake," she said. The problem of quacks working at clinics was brought to public attention by news reports duringh the first week of february 2002 that the wife of a famous singer known as Hlong Longlai had run a clinic and treated patients without any formal medical education before she committed suicide. Earlier, a television programme also aired an episode showing a man posing as a doctor being nabbed at a respectable-looking clinic. The man said he had been hired at 1,000 baht a day to act as a doctor for a long period of time. People afterwards said they were afraid of being seen by the quacks and would opt to seek medical care at hospitals instead. "It's really risky. Just think if we're prescribed the wrong medicine," an employee at a private company said. Clinics with fake doctors raided Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan on February 13 led a team of public health officers and police to raid two clinics with unlicensed, fake doctors in Bangkok's Ramkhamhaeng II area and apprehended the operators of the clinics. Sudarat said the two clinics were Ram II and Thung Setthee clinics, and added that the Public Health Ministry planned to take action against all medical clinics operating illegally throughout the country. Information gathered by the Ministry of Public Health suggested there were about seven illegal clinics in the Ramkhamhaeng II area. They were operating without the presence of genuine medical doctors, she said. According to Sudarat, the Public Health Ministry would take legal action against the clinics' operators, the persons who impersonated medical doctors at the clinics and any doctors who sold copies of their licenses to the clinics. This is actually quite common as many doctors in Thailand, although fabulously wealthy, were nevertheless quite corrupt and took whatever opportunities to make more money. Most people in Thailand become doctors to become fabulously wealthy rather than on the basis of a perceived need to help others. Sudarat said her ministry had found that many clinics were operating without licensed genuine doctors in Bangkok and nearby provinces, particularly Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani and Samut Prakan.