CHINA HEALTH SCIENCES NEWSLETTER
Vol. 4 , No. 2- January 24, 2003
TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
- Victim Wins Malpractice Suit Against Hospital
- China Hospitals Turn Away HIV/AIDS Patients in Need of Care
- Traditional Chinese Medicine to Play Bigger Role
- Insurers Seek Cash from Foreign Investors
- China's Shenzhen City to Build Modern Medicine Logistics System
- China Cracks Down on Price Violation
Victim Wins Malpractice Suit Against Hospital
The family of a patient who died from complications resulting from kidney surgery has won a 17- month court battle against the hospital that performed the surgery for its failure to provide complete information about the potential risks involved.
The Intermediate People's Court in Wenzhou city, in east China' s Zhejiang province, after hearing the appeal, ruled that the Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Cangnan county must pay compensation of nearly RMB 90,000 (US$ 10,845) to the victim's family.
In August of 2000, the hospital operated on Li, who was suffering from kidney failure and high blood pressure, but failed to inform Li or his family of the possible complications. When the first operation proved unsuccessful, the hospital carried out a second operation nine days later without consulting the patient or his family. The doctors also failed to keep any record of the surgeries.
Li's physical condition further deteriorated soon after the second operation, and he died about three weeks later.
In April 2001, the local authority responsible for looking into medical malpractice claims concluded that the hospital had made the right diagnosis but failed to treat Li properly.
In August 2001, Li's wife and five children filed a suit before the Cangnan County Court, claiming compensation from the hospital.
In accordance with the law on the protection of consumers' rights and interests, the court verdict reached in February 2002 said that the hospital had to compensate the family for Li's medical expenses and other costs incurred.
It is the first time for a court in Wenzhou city to treat patients as consumers in settling a medical malpractice suit, sources said. Similar cases were settled in the past with compensation that amounted to 10 years of basic living expenses, calculated in compliance with local standards.
(Source: Xinhua General News Service)
China Hospitals Turn Away HIV/AIDS Patients in Need of Care
In China money can buy most things: foreign cars, penthouse apartments, even political influence, but it won't buy surgery for locals infected with HIV.
"They (the doctors) were afraid of puncturing their skin and then being infected with HIV," says 48-year-old Yin, a local Shanghai artist who is a hemophiliac and is HIV positive. He was scheduled for hip-replacement surgery at Shanghai's Ruijin Hospital in July of 2001 but was told to pack his bags and go home.
Yin now lies in bed at home under the care of his wife, hoping that the government will take action that will not only force the Shanghai Biological Products Institute, the company accused of selling him HIV tainted blood clotting factors, to compensate him for the deadly virus, but also uphold his right to receive treatment.
Until last year municipal health officials believed the city had escaped the HIV pandemic which the central government after years of denial now admits is affecting the whole country.
It is against this backdrop of a sharp rise in the number of AIDS and HIV cases in Shanghai that hospitals in China's eastern metropolis of 13 million are routinely refusing to perform surgery on patients infected by HIV.
This refusal occurs not only because local hospitals do not have resources to handle the mounting numbers of HIV cases, but also because doctors themselves are afraid of contracting HIV from patients.
"A lot of doctors, nurses, technicians, they worry that when they are in contact with HIV patients that they will get the virus infection," said doctor Pan Xiaozhang, an AIDS specialist at Hua Shan Hospital.
"Some doctors think the air can transmit the virus," said Pan.
Senior UNICEF project manager Ray Yip said: "They (doctors) will not touch them (HIV patients). Its ignorance. If you're positive you'll be kicked out (of the hospital)."
Yin and 41 other HIV positive hemophiliacs who have come forward demanding aid from the municipal government are victims of these contaminated blood products.
While Shanghai has so far escaped the spiraling infections rates seen in the worst affected rural provinces of Anhui, Hebei, Hubei, Henan, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Yunnan, HIV and AIDS cases have soared four fold in the city.
Pan and Yip estimate that 1,000 to 3,000 people in the city are now infected with HIV, many of them migrant workers that stream in and out of Shanghai from rural hometowns throughout the country, an ideal conduit for further infection.
The city is also woefully unprepared to deal with the increase of HIV and AIDS cases now impacting the city, experts say.
Although Shanghai has more than 400 hospitals, 75 of them state-owned, only two, the Hospital for Infectious Diseases and Hua Shan Hospital have been designated by the municipal government to treat HIV/AIDS patients.
Of those two hospitals, however, only one actually contains an AIDS ward, the other, Hua Shan Hospital is in the process of building another branch but is not due to be operational for at least another year.
(Source: Agence France Presse)
Traditional Chinese Medicine to Play Bigger Role
China is to make a greater effort to ensure traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) plays a more important role in improving the health of millions of China's rural people.
Various organizations and individuals, both from home and abroad, are being encouraged to open privately run TCM hospitals in the countryside, particularly western and remote poverty-stricken areas, says She Jing, director of the State Administration of TCM. Incentives including lower taxes will be offered to those who, in the future, set up TCM hospitals in rural areas where the vast majority of China's population -nearly 900 million people - still lives.
China's rural populace, 70% of the national total, has access to just 20% of the country's medical resources. This startling imbalance is partly a result of the high levels of poverty and high cost of medicines, especially Western medicines. The majority of Western medicines produced in China over the past 20 years were based on foreign patents, which partly explains the reason for the high prices that have long existed. Many rural people in China have no more than a few dollars a year to spend on health care.
As a form of medicine on which the Chinese people have relied on for hundreds of years, TCM has unique advantages compared to modern Western medicine, including its lower price and the fact that it is widely recognized in the countryside, said Health Minister Zhang Wenkang.
Nevertheless, at present, wholly foreign owned hospitals are prohibited from being opened in China, with foreigners only permitted to establish jointly invested hospitals, according to the Ministry of Health.
(Source: Xinhua Economic News Service)
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China Life Insurance Co and two other Chinese insurers plan to sell shares overseas for the first time, funding the expansion in China's insurance market that grew by 50% last year. China Life, the biggest Chinese insurer, asked Credit Suisse First Boston Inc, Deutsche Bank AG and at least four other banks to Beijing recently to help plan the sale. It joins Ping An Insurance Co. and People's Insurance Co. of China in selling stock abroad.
Insurers are the latest companies to seek cash from foreign investors. Income derived from premiums rose 47% through November to RMB 273.8 billion (US$ 33.1 billion) as more companies bought medical and other types of insurance to replace China's so-called iron rice bowl system of welfare benefits. "This is part of the grand plan," said Stuart Leckie, chairman of Woodrow Milliman China Ltd, who is advising the Chinese government on pension reform. "This is about access to capital, international recognition, management that can be more independent of state control and more of a meritocracy."
China Life is a State-owned life insurer created in 1990 after the government split up People's Insurance Company of China. The company expects premium income in 2002 to rise 48% to RMB 120 billion, President Wang Xianzhang said in October.
A fourth Chinese insurer, New China Life Insurance Co, plans a local listing, officials there have said.
However, all four insurance companies may have to wait until the China Insurance Regulatory Commission completes draft rules governing such share sales before anymore sales go ahead. New China, for example, says it can't sell shares without the new rules.
The entire industry's premium income in last year's first 11 months is less than American International Group Inc's US$ 38.6 billion in 2001. Ping An expects the industry to expand by 30% per year for the next decade. "By selling shares, we can strengthen our payment abilities and write more policies, and we can also boost our corporate governance and transparency," said Sheng Ruisheng, a Shenzhen-based spokesman for Ping An.
Competition from American International, founded in Shanghai in 1919, is also driving domestic insurers to expand as China complies with its World Trade Organization commitment to open its insurance market to foreign competition. By 2004 foreign insurance companies will be allowed to set up businesses throughout the country. For now most are restricted to six cities. "The insurance sector has bright prospects in China as there's still plenty of room to expand," said Stella Lau of East Asia Asset Management Co. "This is a new concept in China."
Shenzhen city in Guangdong Province will set up a modern medicine logistics system covering procurement, transportation, storage and distribution.
State statistics show that the city's sales of medicine and chemical reagents totaled RMB 9.5 billion (US$1.14 billion) in 2002 and the cost of distribution such was 15%. A city official said that if the cost were cut by 1%, the city would save RMB 100 million.
At present, 80% of the pharmaceutical enterprises in the city have their own storage and transport facilities.
According to the official, the modern medicine logistics system that integrates procurement, storage, transport, loading and unloading, distribution, processing and information will link the Pearl River Delta with other parts of Guangdong Province and even some areas in Eastern and Southern China.
The Chinese government will take strict measures to regulate prices so as to create a sound environment for economic development, according to senior government officials.
Wang Yang, vice-minister in Charge of the State Development Planning Commission, speaking at a national price supervision and inspection conference in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province called on local price regulating departments to closely monitor fees charged for power supply, employment and re-employment, real estate services, medical services, medicines and environmental protection, among others.
China's price regulators prosecuted more than 120,000 cases of illegal pricing and charges in the first 11 months of last year.
A total of RMB 2.1 billion (US$ 240 million) was levied in fines, of which about half was returned to customers while the rest was received by the government in fines.
