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.

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