A Taipei medical laboratory has been swindling its customers for years by charging for medical and drug tests that it didn't perform, Taipei City councilors alleged yesterday.
DPP city councilors Lo Tsung-sheng (羅宗勝), Hsu Fu-nan (許富男) and Chen Hsiu-hui (陳秀惠) held a joint press conference at the City Council yesterday to publicize allegations against the Kuang Yei Medical Laboratory (廣益醫事檢驗所). The councilors were responding to a complaint filed by one of the laboratory's former employees, Weng Chien-wei (翁健偉).
The private laboratory is one of five drug-testing centers designated to conduct second-round tests on suspected drug users for the Taipei City Police Headquarters (
Between September 1999 and February, Kuang Yei handled 72 cases for the police, or 17 percent of its caseload.
Last month, however, the Cabinet's Department of Health suspended its contract with the center because it failed to meet requirements.
Weng, who joined the two-decade-old laboratory in May 1999, said that he estimated about 100 people had been conned over the past two years.
He said the lab had faked the results of some of the drug tests done for the police and also charged for other tests that were never conducted.
"To make big profits, the center would persuade clients to have expensive tests done for such items as cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, but it ended up making up its reports without actually carrying out the tests," Weng said.
Responding to a request made by the three councilors, the city's Bureau of Health (衛生局) raided the laboratory yesterday afternoon.
The search team concluded that the lab is "equipped with qualified staff and proper machinery," but issued a NT$30,000 fine for fabricating test results for a decoy patient sent by city councilors.
Commenting on the raid, Weng told the Taipei Times that the city was just putting on a show to fool the average person.
"Professionals [in the city government] would've paid more attention to the reagents than the equipment and personnel," he said. "I know the two inspection officers, who are not professionals and are old friends of the center's owner."
Weng added that the laboratory's owner, Chen Chin-yi (陳進益), had threatened to hurt him before he decided to go public.
"I'm afraid that he might eventually do so because I know too much about him," he said.
According to Weng, Chen had borrowed money from over 35 underground banking houses. When he could not pay back the loans, Weng said, Chen reported the loansharks to the police in the hopes that they would be arrested.
Police records also show that Chen, a certified medical examiner, has complained about 35 underground banking houses lending him money at usurious rates.
The excessive number of cases reported by Chen, however, did trigger the suspicions of prosecutors, who have initiated their own investigation into his activities.
Chen was sentenced to five months in prison on an unrelated fraud charge last October.
Responding to Weng's accusations, Chen told the Taipei Times that his former employee had gone public out of a desire for vengeance.
"We got into numerous fights before I eventually fired him last month. I even saved his life when he tried to kill himself after his girlfriend broke up with him last summer," he said.
Chen added that Weng has been dishonest about the amount of money being paid for drug tests, had threatened to hurt him and abused office resources.
Chen blamed the false test results given to a decoy patient on the negligence of the laboratory's sole employee, who had recently been hired. He said he would file a petition to have the health bureau's NT$30,000 fine against the laboratory dismissed.
The bureau, meanwhile, will follow up yesterday's raid with an overall inspection of the city's 82 other testing centers and laboratories.
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