Latest situation of suspected closure of private healthcare facilities
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Investigation progress
Customs today (May 7) arrested a director and a company secretary of the private healthcare facilities involved. They allegedly wrongly accepted payments as their commercial practices in the course of selling services, which is in contravention of the TDO. Under the TDO, any trader commits an offence if at the time of acceptance of payment, the trader intends not to supply the product or intends to supply a materially different product, or there is no reasonable ground for believing that the trader will be able to supply the product within a specified or reasonable period.
Customs received reports claiming that the private healthcare facilities failed to provide their customers with services that had already been paid. Customs immediately deployed a dedicated team to follow up on the reports and launch investigations. Investigations revealed that before the suspected closure of the facilities, the facilities were still accepting their customers' payments for prepaid services, resulting in those customers not being able to use the services without refund.
After investigations, Customs officers conducted enforcement actions today and arrested the private healthcare facilities' male director and female company secretary, aged 61 and 31 respectively.
Investigations are ongoing.
Number of requests for assistance
As at 5pm today, Customs and the Police received 1 686 related reports in total. The relevant law enforcement agencies (LEAs) will continue to arrange for those who have made a report to give statements, with a view to gathering evidence. The LEAs will continue carrying out their investigations and take appropriate enforcement actions.
The Council received 844 related complaints. The Council will continue to refer the complaints to the relevant private healthcare facilities through known channels in accordance with procedures for handling complaints.
The DH has set up a dedicated telephone hotline, email and WhatsApp for public enquiries for free on related issues since May 3. A total of 112 enquiries (of which 50 were related to vaccines for children and 56 to vaccines for other age groups) were received through the DH's dedicated telephone hotline, email and WhatsApp. The DH has provided appropriate health information and vaccination-related professional advice to meet the different needs of the enquirers. The DH has also assisted parents in need in arranging for their children to receive vaccinations at the DH's Maternal and Child Health Centres and advised them on how to receive vaccines not included in the Hong Kong Childhood Immunisation Programme according to scientific evidence or vaccines for other age groups.
The Primary Healthcare Commission (PHC Commission) has engaged with family doctors and healthcare facilities. Currently, there is a stable supply of relevant vaccines in the private sector, and the service providers are ready to provide vaccination services to people in need. To this end, the PHC Commission has reminded family doctors listed in the Primary Care Directory (PCD) to update their practice information, particularly on the provision of vaccination services, to enable citizens in need to identify suitable family doctors. Members of the public can search for the practice information of relevant family doctors by selecting immunisation (including various vaccines for children) under "Services Provision" in the PCD (apps.pcdirectory.gov.hk/Public/EN/AdvancedSearch?ProfID=RMP). They are advised to contact the relevant family doctors in advance to confirm service details, fees and other relevant matters before making vaccination arrangements.
Ends/Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Issued at HKT 23:16
Issued at HKT 23:16
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