BANGKOK: China's growing corruption inside the healthcare sector has caught the watchful gaze of the ministry of health and they are pushing a new effort to end bribes at hospitals in order to bolster the country's health services and reduce costs for patients. Li Xiu, a cancer patient who came to Bangkok from Shanghai for treatment, told Bikyamasr.com that he welcomed the ministry's moves. “To get the best healthcare in China you have to pay money on the side to doctors. This is no good. We need to end this,” he said. The ministry's new move will see patients and doctors ordered to sign a document that states “no bribes will be offered or accepted” by the two sides. Public health officials say it is a step in the right direction for China. The ministry said in a statement published by the official news agency Xinhua that “When a public hospital accepts a new inpatient, both sides should sign the agreement in which the patient promises no bribe, and the hospital and doctors no acceptance of a bribe.' The agreement will then be placed as part of the patient's medical record. In China, some patients and their family members offer “red envelopes” that contain cash to doctors before surgery, in an effort to have better care during and after procedures. The ministry on Friday published three documents relating to prevention and control of corruption risk in the country's public hospitals. The documents asked hospitals to strengthen control and supervision of administrative power and practices of medical workers. Their efforts should be focused on corruption-prone positions and key procedures within the service that may trigger high public attention, according to the documents. They also urged a timely and effective curb of doctors' receiving “red envelopes” or kickbacks and prescribing unnecessary medicine as well as overcharging patients. Also on Friday, China's Vice Health Minister Ma Xiaowei told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that a reform program in the country's public hospitals has received positive results. In the Beijing Friendship Hospital, where the program has been piloted, the current average healthcare fee in each outpatient case has been cut by 69.8 yuan (about 11 U.S. dollars) from the figure in the first half of the year, a decrease of 15.5 percent, Ma said. Average medical fees for inpatient cases reduced by 2,467 yuan, registering a 13.2 percent drop, he said.
