Former hospital director in Vinh Long accused of receiving 1.4 billion VND from Viet A

On October 20, the People's Procuracy of Vinh Long province issued an indictment to prosecute Mr. Doan Van Hung (60 years old), former Director of Vinh Long General Hospital; Phan Thi Ngoc Tham (43 years old, in charge of the Department of Biochemistry - Microbiology - Immunology - Molecular Biology), Dinh Thi Thanh Chi (55 years old, former Deputy Head of the Department of Pharmacy) for the crime of "Violating bidding regulations causing serious consequences".

According to the indictment, in early April 2021, when the COVID-19 epidemic broke out, the Vinh Long Department of Health assigned the provincial General Hospital to conduct SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tests, with funding from the epidemic prevention fund and revenue from the medical examination and treatment services of this unit.

At this time, Tran Tien Luc (sales staff of Viet A Company, in charge of the Western region) came to meet Mr. Hung and Tham to introduce COVID-19 testing reagents and chemicals along with tools and supplies...

Luc invited the company to let the hospital advance the test kit and pay later. Given the complicated developments of the epidemic and the increasing demand for COVID-19 test kits, Mr. Hung agreed and directed Tham and Chi to contact Luc to coordinate the procedures for borrowing chemicals from Viet A Company.

Viet A Company has advanced more than 58,600 test kits to Vinh Long General Hospital 15 times. Mr. Hung directed Tham and Chi to contact Luc and Tran Thi Hong (Viet A employees) to provide 3 higher quotes from Viet A Company, in order to legalize the documents, allowing Viet A to be designated as the contractor.

The investigation results determined that from May 2021 to September 2021, Vinh Long General Hospital and Viet A Company legalized by preparing documents for 6 bidding packages for the designated bidding company according to the normal bidding procedure.

After that, Viet A Company sold 37,000 COVID-19 test kits to Vinh Long General Hospital at prices ranging from 367,500-509,250 VND/kit, for a total of more than 17.6 billion VND. In fact, the maximum price of a test kit produced by Viet A Company is only more than 143,000 VND.

From there, causing damage to Vinh Long General Hospital of more than 12.3 billion VND.

Upon receiving the payment, Luc reported to Phan Quoc Viet (General Director of Viet A Company) to pay 20% commission to the hospital. Mr. Hung was accused of receiving about 1.4 billion VND, defendant Tham received 850 million VND and Thanh received 100 million VND.