On April 20, the Deputy Minister of Health sent a document to medical facilities requesting to strengthen inspection and supervision of the implementation of legal regulations in medical examination and treatment.
This move was made after discovering many cases involving health workers consulting and instructing patients on the use of milk products produced and distributed by businesses and individuals but identified as fake milk. Along with that is the situation of large-scale production and trading of fake drugs that has been recently investigated by authorities.
The Ministry of Health eliminates the exploitation of prescriptions and the sale of functional foods in hospitals
Through management and reflection from many channels, the Ministry of Health has discovered the situation where health workers at a number of medical examination and treatment facilities introduce and consult on the use of products distributed by businesses, including fake milk and fake medicine that are produced and traded on a large scale. The Ministry assessed that this behavior violated professional regulations and poses a potential risk to patient safety.
Tightening prescriptions, increasing inspection of drugs and functional foods
The Ministry of Health requires health facilities to review the list of drugs in use to compare with the list of fake drugs that the authorities have investigated and discovered in the past, and strictly handle any violations.
In addition, it is necessary to check the prescription of non-medicine products such as milk and functional foods; tighten control of unlicensed prescriptions; behaviors that take advantage of medical examination and treatment to suggest that patients use services, drugs, and equipment for profit; completely prohibit the sale of drugs in any form by practitioners.
The Ministry also emphasized the promotion of clinical pharmacy activities at medical examination and treatment facilities, strengthening consultation, prescription supervision, monitoring of harmful drug reactions and drug interaction management.
Absolutely prohibit consultation on fake milk and functional foods in violation of regulations
For non-medical products, the Ministry requires inspection of all consultation, advertising, and sales of products such as milk (especially fake milk), functional foods in hospitals. Medical facilities must comply with the provisions of the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment 2023 and Circular 18/2020/TT-BYT on nutritional activities in hospitals.
In addition, the Ministry also requires rectifying advertising, marketing, prescription, and consultation activities on the use of products that are not drugs but are labelled as having the effect of treating, preventing diseases, and improving body functions without a license from a competent authority. These acts are considered an abuse of medical knowledge for fake advertising.
The Ministry of Health requires strict handling of individuals and organizations that violate, absolutely not covering up or condoning. At the same time, hospitals and health departments need to increase propaganda and dissemination of legal regulations to raise awareness of health care staff and people, encourage detection and denunciation of violations.
Units must report the implementation status and results of handling violations (if any) to the Ministry of Health - through the Department of Medical Examination and Treatment Management - before April 24, 2025.
