Guess the country : Corruption in Hospital

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Investigation launched after scalpers found fixing hospital bookings in China, making patients pay sky-high prices to see doctors

Beijing hospital denies appointment touts operating on its grounds but police detain several of them

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 28 January, 2016, 11:29pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 28 January, 2016, 11:29pm

Zhaung Pinghui
[email protected]



A file photo of patients and family members waiting for treatment along a corridor at the Guanganmen Hospital in Beijing. Photo: Reuters

Security guards at a hospital in Beijing, China, have been accused of colluding with appointment scalpers, forcing patients to fork out exorbitant fees to see their doctors, despite authorities’ promises to address the issue.

A video that went viral online this week showed a woman at Guanganmen Hospital, a top medical centre, screaming at scalpers for working with its security guards to abuse the appointment booking system.

The woman said she had queued for two days for a slot to see the specialist to no avail, and that scalpers said her only choice was to pay them 4,500 yuan (HK$5,330) for the 300-yuan appointment. She was told the slot was not available despite her being third in line, yet the scalper behind her managed to book a slot, she said.

The hospital on Tuesday denied its guards were involved and said there was no evidence scalpers were operating on its grounds.

But Beijing police told a different story. “Seven scalpers [from the hospital] were taken into custody on Monday and four were detained,” police said yesterday.

Five more were detained from Peking Medical Union College Hospital and Xuanwu Hospital after the complaint, and a task force had been set up to investigate the matter, police said.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission’s Beijing branch said it would not tolerate any collusion between hospital staff and scalpers.

Still, a Sina.com reporter managed to get an otherwise-unavailable appointment with a doctor at Guanganmen on Wednesday after paying a scalper 300 yuan. The booking was made under another patient’s name and the reporter was told to say her friend had booked the slot for her.

The hospital said patients had to personally book their appointments but that in practice, the hospital had no way of verifying patients’ identities.

A Xinhua reporter met a scalper who offered a slot with a renowned specialist for 2,500 yuan. The reporter later confirmed with the hospital that the doctor did not take in new patients.

Cardiologist Yang Qing, with Huaxi Hospital in Chengdu, Sichuan province, said scalpers were benefiting from the health authority’s administrative monopoly. If doctors were allowed to price their own services, they would be able to compete at reasonable prices and prioritise patients with acute illnesses, he said.

“No matter how you manage, control and punish, you can only manage the scalpers on the surface. You can’t control the business opportunities others are taking advantage of, depriving those less privileged of the opportunity of seeing a doctor,” Yang wrote on his personal blog.






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