Chinese language - Medical employees suffer, too

Opinion / You Nuo

Medical employees suffer, too
By You Nuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-05-08 05:36

One of the Chinese characteristics is the belief that when anything goes
wrong, it can go wrong in ways more complicated than what can be imagined
by common sense.

Such is the case with the medical system's metamorphosis amid the
market-oriented reform. It should be pointed out that, as it is being
complained that health care is no longer affordable by common people, the
medical professionals may not be on the receiving end of the increasing
amount of money the system is devouring on a daily basis.

The failure is not just one-sided, in that decent medical services are
getting more distant, rather than closer, from the low-income people and
the vast masses in rural China. In the meantime, it also hurts the
medical staff in their reward and their morale, and eventually will hurt
the sense of honour of this profession.

I just happened to witness two medical emergency incidents recently and
have learned from them a lesson which I doubt I could have gained from
the published sources so far.

Both incidents took place in Beijing, where people are supposedly covered
by the best medical system available in China. One involved a friend's
son who was stricken by pneumonia and was ordered to stay in a
municipal-level paediatric hospital.

But the child was lucky that no major operation was required on him, and
he was discharged after a week although for that week, the family had to
spend one-third of its monthly income on the medical and in-patient care
bills.

That was more than 1,000 yuan (US$125), not including the diagnoses and
prescriptions the child had received from the neighbourhood healthcare
centres.

Since the father was a self-employed driver, not on the payroll of any
large institution, he didn't have any insurance policy to claim a refund
for the expenditure.

Then during the just-passed May Day holiday, as another friend of mine
was knocked down by a sudden bout of high blood pressure and was rushed
to the ER department of a national level hospital, I made more disturbing
observations.

Nearly 3,000 yuan (US$375) was charged for the ambulance and less than 12
hours of ER check-ups and care. Fortunately, the patient had a
State-sector job and was entitled to get most of his bills refunded. But
it was the doctors' condition that scared me not the way they worked, but
the way they got their reward.

I chatted with two doctors, one after another, while waiting outside the
ER department. Contrary to the overcrowded scene in most hospitals, this
was one of its divisions in one of Beijing's newly developed areas, and
was not having many visitors one rainy afternoon of a public holiday.

Like many Chinese do, we compared notes about work hours and pay, and
other things in Beijingers' daily lives.

The neurologist told me his monthly take-home income was "just about the
amount your friend would pay for today, and maybe even less," while he
sometimes had to work on a 48-hour basis because the facility was too new
and didn't have many patients.

The physician was apparently able to earn a little more, and brought home
4,000 yuan (US$494) in one or two months last year.

But these are not high incomes in Beijing. Receiving kickbacks for
prescribing expensive medicines is prohibited in national hospitals, it's
reported. But where has the money gone now that the patients are paying
so much?

The neurologist pointed to the practically empty large medical facility:
"Never has a day passed without me noticing some new building or interior
decorating work going on. Not just in this division, the hospital is
expanding nationwide, making takeovers of local hospitals."

But why can the management be expanding and building fervently and
ignoring its employees' rights? The answer seems simple: It has got the
money. It has no respect for rules. And it has no one to police its
behaviour.

Email: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/08/2006 page4)

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