Police have proposed that 12 people, including six doctors, in southern Vietnam, be prosecuted for abuse of power that caused losses of nearly VND4 billion to the state coffer.

Inspectors of the Ministry of Public Security said Luu To Lan, a doctor at Ho Chi Minh CIty-based Cho Ray hospital, and her accomplices had faked 1,200 prescriptions for health insurance policy holders between 2008 and last May to obtain drugs which they later sold to local pharmacies.

For this purpose, they had operated a network to illegally collect health insurance cards of workers in and around Ho Chi Minh City who under the law are insured by the government insurance agency.

They sold the drugs at two third the market prices to appropriate about VND2.65 billion, of which Lan pocketed more than VND1.1 billion, according to the police.

Under Vietnamese law, charges of power abuse while on duty are punishable by jail terms of up to 10-15 years.