|
Hospitals overcharge patients for profits
By Wang Zhenghua (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-05 05:48
Specifically, the report said physicians in some non-profit hospitals often
prescribe unnecessary and expensive medicines, operations and medical checkups.
"Doctors in my department always prescribe expensive medicines for children,"
said Wang Ling, a paediatric nurse with a State-run hospital in Shenyang,
capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province.
According to Wang, paediatricians often recommend an anti-inflammatory
injection that is about 100 times more expensive than penicillin even though it
is no more effective in killing bacteria.
"If their own children are sick, they will surely prescribe penicillin rather
than the expensive one," she said.
Through prescribing expensive medicines, a paediatrician can generate extra
profits of up to 2,000 yuan (US$250) every month, a practice hospitals encourage
because they get a percentage of the money, Wang added.
Medical facilities use extra charges to pay their workers' salaries and
allowances, and to update their equipment, Gao said in his report last month.
Even worse, unemployed and migrant workers, urban residents on a low income
and most rural residents are not covered by medical insurance.
According to ministry statistics, the nation's hospitals have been
maintaining double digit growth in income while receiving fewer patients each
year.
For the past eight years, medical bills have been growing faster than
people's incomes.
The revenue generated by medical facilities increased by about 70 per cent
between 2000 and 2003, Gao said. And most of that growth came from charges for
medical treatment.
"Health institutions putting profit ahead of other functions not only add
burdens to patients, but seriously undermine the image of both medical personnel
and public health departments," Gao said.
The minister said weak supervision was also to blame.
According to Gao, health departments have focused too
much on development and ignored their duty to supervise hospitals.
|
 | | | Twin panda cubs doing well | | |  | | | Villages flooded in Anhui | | |  | | | Pet dogs tie the knot in Changchun | | |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top China
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
