Revealing Corruption Data in Public Hospitals: These Two Areas Are "Heavy Disaster Areas" Public Hospitals | Medical Devices | Data
The recent deepening of pharmaceutical anti-corruption has once again brought the issue of anti-corruption in public hospitals to the public's attention. Which areas are the "hardest hit areas" of corruption in public hospitals? What are the main forms of doctor corruption?
The third journal of China Health Management in 2023 published an article titled "The Current Situation and Legal Suggestions of Corruption in Public Hospitals" written by Wu Yinghui and others from the School of Public Health, Jilin University. The article statistically analyzed nearly 2000 criminal judgments on medical corruption in public hospitals in the past decade on the Judgment Document Network. The analysis results show that bribery is the main form of corruption in public hospitals, and drugs and medical equipment are the main links of corruption.
This paper manually extracted 1952 criminal judgments on medical corruption in public hospitals provided by the Judgment Document Network and relevant administrative departments from 2013 to 2021, and obtained 2016 data on medical corruption.
These data indicate that corrupt practices in public hospitals mainly include corruption and bribery. Other forms of bribery include bribery, misappropriation of public funds, embezzlement of official positions, and private division of state-owned assets. Corruption and bribery account for over 90% of cases. In cases of corruption and bribery, bribery accounts for the vast majority. The forms of bribery for hospital staff include cash red envelopes, kickbacks, physical items, vouchers, tourism, etc. The subjects of bribery come from various sources, including medical representatives and their units, patient families, medical workers, infrastructure companies, insurance companies, and so on.
Medical reform expert Xu Yucai told First Financial that for over a decade, the fight against corruption in medicine has been ongoing, but the problem of corruption still exists and is showing a trend of spread and secrecy. The corruption problem in the medical field is quite widespread, including pharmaceutical procurement and sales, engineering construction, material procurement, personnel selection and employment, etc.
Xu Yucai stated that academic conferences are also a hidden form of corruption. In recent years, against the backdrop of anti-corruption actions in the pharmaceutical industry, the channels through which pharmaceutical companies directly contacted medical personnel in medical institutions have been blocked, and some poorly managed associations and societies can use pharmaceutical companies to sponsor academic activities and act as "media" in a legal guise.
According to the understanding of First Financial, currently, some hospitals require doctors to pay lectures on corporate platforms and receive unreasonable remuneration such as lecture fees, training fees, and seminar fees. At the same time, there are also regions that require reporting on the behavior of pharmaceutical production and operation enterprises providing kickbacks to medical institutions, their internal departments, and employees under various names or forms such as consulting fees, lecture fees, and promotion fees.
The data from the above paper shows that corruption in public hospitals mainly involves medical equipment, drugs, consumables, medical insurance, infrastructure, etc. In the individual links involved in medical corruption, the medical device and drug links are the main occurrence links, accounting for a similar proportion. The main reason is that hospitals have a high demand for medical equipment and drugs, and the medical reform has increased the investment in public hospitals. The demand for hospitals in these aspects has gradually become higher; Secondly, medical devices and drugs involve a considerable amount of funding, making it more profitable to start in these areas.
Comparison of corruption in different types of hospitals. In recent years, it is not uncommon for some disclosed hospital director corruption cases to involve expensive medical equipment. In May of this year, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission announced a case in which Yang Wenjun, former Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and President of the People's Hospital of Pu'er City, Yunnan Province, and Yang Wenhong, former Party Committee member and Vice President, became sworn brothers with suppliers, indulging in eating, entertainment, and accepting gifts and cash. A medical device linear accelerator with an import price of 15 million yuan was purchased by the hospital for 35.2 million yuan, far higher than the market price during the same period. Yang Wenjun took a rebate of 16 million yuan.
On August 7th, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission revealed in an article titled "Precise Punishment of Unit Bribery" that in early 2021, Xu Kaihua, a shareholder and actual controller of Shanghai Fitz Electromechanical Equipment Co., Ltd., recommended a certain brand of medical equipment to Wang Xianming, then Director of the Leqing Municipal Health Bureau in Zhejiang Province, through his cousin Xu Yunfen, hoping to receive attention and agree to return a portion of the profits. The verdict shows that Xu Kaihua bribed Wang Xianming with a total of 7.15 million yuan through Xu Yunfen.
The above paper believes that in recent years, medical corruption cases have emerged one after another, seriously affecting the quality of hospital management and services, restricting the improvement of medical level, and thus affecting the demand for high-quality medical treatment among the public, undermining the fairness of medical care, and becoming a major obstacle to achieving the goal of a healthy China.
Xu Yucai stated that although the anti-corruption difficulties in the pharmaceutical industry are different from those in other industries, the root causes are similar. Both are related to the incomplete development of the market, the incomplete legal system, the lack of formation of many rules and regulations, and lax law enforcement. The next step is to comprehensively strengthen comprehensive supervision in the pharmaceutical industry, promote the construction of a long-term mechanism for addressing corruption in the national pharmaceutical industry, and further purify the industry atmosphere.
