Hospital found overcharging 200,000 yuan
(Shenzhen Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-08 08:47

Four officials with a Harbin hospital were punished over a 5.5 million yuan (US$670,000) medical bill that raised serious questions about the state of healthcare on the mainland, the China News Service said Monday.

Weng Wenhui, 74, died Aug. 6 after 68 days of treatment in the Second Hospital Affiliated to Harbin Medical University. His total medical bill came to 5.5 million yuan.

The president of the hospital was suspended from his post while three other department chiefs were sacked after investigators found that 200,000 yuan had been overcharged during Weng’s treatment, hospital official Li Wenzhi said at a news briefing Monday.

The Ministry of Health sent three taskforces to carry out an investigation after domestic newspapers extensively covered the case as the “most expensive medical treatment on the mainland,” Li said. Weng’s treatment at the Harbin hospital cost a total of 1.32 million yuan, not the 5.5 million yuan reported by newspapers, investigators found. The rest of the money was spent on imported drugs and medical experts from other hospitals, which were arranged for by the patient’s family members.

The hospital did have other problems in management and charging, Li said, but he added that it was reasonable for a patient to receive 94 blood transfusions a day to sieve and dialyze the blood. He was referring to a widely quoted detail that Weng received 94 blood transfusions July 30.

Weng’s family insisted the patient be transferred to an ICU and invited more than 100 doctors from Beijing to treat him, although the Harbin hospital had persuaded them to give up as his disease was terminal, Li said.