Anti-graft guide for Chinese medicine practitioners launched

The city's graft-buster has launched a corruption prevention guide for Chinese medicine practitioners and clinics, advising them on how best to deal with situations that put them in danger of corruption.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption said Chinese medicine clinics often did not give their workers clear guidelines on how to handle conflicts of interest in areas such as procuring medicine and handling their appointment bookings.

Many independent Chinese medicine practitioners also lacked the knowledge and resources to enforce integrity management, the agency said.

"While corruption in the industry is not serious and the number of prosecutions against those guilty of it remains low, we have launched this guide as a preventive measure to enhance the industry's integrity management," Professor Cindy Lam Lo-kuen said.

Lam is a member of the Corruption Prevention Advisory Committee and head of the University of Hong Kong's family medicine and primary care department.

As part of the launch of the guide, a corruption prevention checklist was mailed to the city's 9,600 independent Chinese medicine practitioners.

The checklist includes points to note in handling situations such as referring patients to other clinics, issuing medical certificates and procuring medicine.