Hebei hospital cooperating with probe into commercial bribes worth millions

The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University said on Monday that it is cooperating with regulatory authorities after China's national healthcare regulator disclosed that hospital staff had accepted commercial bribes totaling 184 million yuan ($27.4 million) over a period of up to 11 years.

The hospital made the remarks to the online media outlet The Paper after the National Healthcare Security Administration released a statement on Sunday detailing commercial bribery involving pharmaceutical and medical device companies and hospital staff.

According to the administration, the hospital was implicated in nine criminal court judgments in the second half of 2025 alone. Its staff accepted commercial bribes on 46 occasions, with the largest single case involving 16.58 million yuan. The longest-running scheme lasted 11 years.

More than 30 pharmaceutical and medical device companies had bribed hospital staff over an extended period, the administration said. Eleven companies were involved in the crime of corporate bribery.

The administration said it had referred the case information to the Hebei provincial healthcare security bureau as leads for credit evaluations of the companies involved and targeted inspections of relevant designated medical institutions.

It said it would step up targeted inspections and strengthen its pharmaceutical pricing and procurement credit evaluation system to curb bribery-driven sales and inflated prices of drugs and medical devices.