"Touts" peddle medical appointments in China
As people queue for more than a day outside hospitals, there are those who sell places for despicably high prices. The government pledges to punish this activity. Meanwhile, the infant mortality rate is climbing and preventing epidemics is proving difficult.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) The Chinese government has declared war on touts who sell reservations for medical appointments. An appointment with a specialist in the prestigious Peking Union Medical College Hospital could cost a night of waiting in line and 9 or 14 yuan (1.1 or 1.7 US dollars), depending on the specialist required. Or else, you could turn to those who "sell" reservations for 200 or 300 yuan. Waiting in a "standard" queue could take up to 24 hours, however some queues have even stretched to 36. Touts queue up first and sell their place.
A minority of privileged Chinese who enjoy free health services (around 15% out of 130 million city employees) can avail themselves of specialist appointments in the big cities' best hospitals. Around 7,000 appointments per day take place in the Peking Union alone. However, over 200 million patients opt to go to the main hospitals because the best doctors are there. Some specialists will only see around eight patients per day and to be one of those, you would need to be among the first in the line. People coming from outside the city would want a quick appointment in order to return home. Hence a "trade" has mushroomed: queuing up to sell one's place in the line. The price depends on the renown of the hospital and the length of the queue.
The Health and Public Security Ministries, together with the state bureaus of traditional Chinese medicine and of industry and trade, have declared war on such touts, vowing to punish them. The police will hover around queues to keep guard, especially outside hospitals where the phenomenon is most common. There was also mention of "chief priorities for all hospitals" to adopt simplified means for clinical visits. But this was not elaborated.
Doctors and patients say that to eradicate the phenomenon, doing away with queues outside the hospital would suffice, through better organisation of appointments. In recent years, the possibility for Guangzhou residents to book medical appointments online was announced. However, inexplicably, the initiative was never launched.
Experts say the shortcomings of the health system are linked to the economic boom. The setting up of health medical aid in rural areas through "barefoot doctors" led to notable improvements within a generation, increasing life expectancy from 35 to 68 years. The reforms of the seventies introduced cuts in spending in the health sector, which was transformed into profit-making enterprise to pay its own way, instead of being an essential social service. Many hold that cheap health assistance is the first requirement of the population, more than freedom, elimination of corruption or fighting pollution. Exasperation about this system is one of the chief motivations for more than 74,000 public protests held in 2004. Even while the economy makes giant strides ahead, infant mortality rates in rural areas are climbing and diseases now held to be unstoppable are spreading, like "snail fever".
International experts have joined in criticizing the system; they fear it may encourage the spread of serious epidemics like bird flu. "As for infectious diseases and biological threats, we must understand that the [global] system is as strong as its weakest link," said Henk Bekedam, head of the World Health Organisation in China. "Diseases do not know boundaries; if there are weaker countries, we must help each other."
Lei Hachao, head of the ministerial office of policy research, added: "Public health is an important gauge of the credibility of the government and the Communist Party."
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25/03/2006
