The woman surnamed Yang was 34 when she was admitted to Peking University Third Hospital on Dec. 28 due to hypertension. (Photo : Bloomberg)
China's medical industry has all but rejected the advances in Internet technology and communication, instead relying on a dated and hobbled medical system that struggles under its own weight.
One of the trends in the medical industry is the rise of online sites that have doctors staffed to give medical advice and diagnosis through chat, email or on message boards. However, the Chinese medical system has not only made it difficult for these services to thrive, but government health regulators have actually banned hospitals from offering diagnoses through online medical advice.
As such, these online medical care websites have been relegated to obscurity with incredibly high barriers to entry. Some sites, such as chunyuyisheng.com, have instead planned to open physical clinics.
The problem lies within the medical landscape. The medical system is confined to the 700 or so institutions which care for the majority of the nation's patients. These insitutions are divided between top-tier and third-tier hospitals and clinics, with public third-tier hospitals providing their services at rather low prices.
However, patients have not been too keen on the services offered by these third-tier hospitals. There are various complaints regarding their substandard services. The high rate of dissatisfaction has caused much friction between patients and medical providers, and this relationship has deteriorated even more in the past 10 years, according to Sina's Web portal.
Among the complaints of many patients is the tendency of doctors to give long precription lists which do not always match up with a patient's actual diagnosis or medical necessity. Doctors are paid low wages in these intstitutions, and are given a commission based on the medicine they prescribe, so there is a strong temptation to over-prescribe.
The market is dominated by these third-tier institutions, and this has led to a low number of private hospitals. The problem is further exacerbated by the tendency of wealthy Chinese to seek medical treatment abroad instead of locally, further curtailing funding to top-tier private hospitals.
This has led to private hospitals running deep in the red, and thus needing to price their services exorbitantly and beyond the reach of most citizens. They end up having a very small client base compared to the public hospitals.
With the healthcare industry excessively weighted toward public third-tier hospitals perceived as substandard by the citizenry, China's medical care system is burdened with many government subsidies that further drain on resources.
This socialized system is a strong deterrent to competition for private medical services, both in the form of top-tier istitutions and online services. As a result, the system clings to physical clinics that are providing substandard services.
