Democrat Wants Team To Probe Unlicensed Medics

Democratic Party campaigners are calling on the police to set up a dedicated unit to tackle cases of people practising medicine without a licence.

District councillor Ramon Yuen made the call after working on the case of a woman who said she fell ill after receiving a cosmetic injection from a Taiwanese doctor in Central.

The woman, who has not been named, said she felt her face turn numb after the jab, and also suffered vomiting, headaches and fever. She could not find the doctor's name on the local medical register, leading her to believe she was not registered.

Yuen criticised police for not stopping the doctor from leaving Hong Kong. But he said police involved in such cases lacked specialist knowledge as they had to work on a wide range of crimes.

"You can imagine that they do not have sufficient medical knowledge or related knowledge," Yuen said. "So I believe the police should assign a specific team, with the support of the Department of Health to train them."

A series of medical blunders involving unlicensed practitioners in the medical cosmetics industry has sparked concerns about how Hong Kong regulates such work.