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A 40-year-old finance professional named Steven tested positive for COVID-19 in Beijing during the height of China’s outbreak in December. Up until the eighth day, when his condition deteriorated, Steven felt fine.
The driver for his sister drove him to the hospital. He was told there were no beds despite his limited mobility and difficulty breathing. He was once more turned down as they drove to another.
He became so desperate that he requested his sister to use her contacts. Steven was rushed to a crowded hospital and given oxygen before being given a bed in the children’s ward after hours of frantic calls. There, a mother of a pupil of his nephew worked.
Steven, who spent 20 days in the hospital with what physicians determined to be serious pneumonia, claimed that he would not have received a bed or medication if he hadn’t had that link. The sensitive nature of the situation prevented him from disclosing his family name.
According to three people who obtained care through such ways and seven doctors in six cities, while Covid ravaged China and clogged emergency rooms, privileged patients skipped hospital lines because they knew someone, paid people with connections, or gave bribes.
Since Beijing abruptly lifted its zero-COVID limitations in early December, there have been several stories of overflowing hospitals and cemeteries. As a result, the underfunded Chinese health system has long been used to get by.
According to a research by Shanghai’s Fudan School of Public Health, China had 4.37 ICU beds per 100,000 population in 2021, compared to 34.2 in the United States as of 2015.
According to the doctors, connections can include the patient being related to or associated to a government official or being a patient of that figure.
“Your treatment will be better or queue-jumping will be simpler the higher and more senior your connection. There won’t be any issue securing a bed if you know the hospital administrator “A Shanghai physician said.
Although China has made an effort to combat doctor bribery, regulatory attention has been placed on payments from pharmaceutical firms rather than payments from patients.
The National Health Commission stated in April 2022 that authorities should step up enforcement against physicians who take such payments. Nearly ten years ago, China forbade doctors from taking red packets containing cash as part of extensive healthcare reforms.
Doctors and specialists claimed that red packets and “guanxi,” or connections, are still used to obtain access.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said that seeking great healthcare through connections is fairly prevalent in China. She added that, given the strain Covid has put on resources, ties may now be even more important.
Requests for comment from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Health Commission were not honored.
Although the first wave of Covid hospitalizations in China has peaked, experts caution that more infection waves could still occur.
GREY INCOME AND LOW WAGES
Longer wait times for treatment result from China’s policy of keeping healthcare costs low in order to make it accessible. However, experts and physicians claim this policy leaves many doctors chronically underpaid and the medical field struggling to recruit qualified personnel.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of new medical employees entering the system in 2020 was 546,657, the lowest number since 2017.
What type of pay do you get for working long hours and having experience if you only get 10,000 to 15,000 yuan ($1,463.70) to 15,000 yuan per month? A medical student in affluent Shanghai made this statement and added that doctors frequently wait until they are in their mid-30s before being eligible for such a pay. “It is embarrassing.”
Two doctors at a city in Sichuan province claimed that new doctors in smaller cities can make as little as 3,000 to 5,000 yuan per month.
One of them said, “If you can live off your pay and have enough to eat, then you’re already doing pretty well.”
The main doctor is frequently given access-granting gifts like pricey tea and red packets filled with cash, but occasionally the head nurse and the person who initiated the connection are as well. Two people who recently accepted under-the-table payments warned that this could result in a total medical bill that is twice what the official medical cost is.
Despite the crackdown on corruption in the healthcare industry, Huang stated that many hospital doctors still rely on red envelopes from patients as their primary source of income rather than their basic salary.
Payments made to middlemen, also known as “yellow cows,” might be helpful for individuals without connections.
It costs less to visit the doctor.
It would cost 400 yuan, according to one agent who claimed in an advertising to be able to contact any doctor at any hospital in Shanghai, to skip the line and get an appointment with a renowned doctor at a prestigious facility.
The agent might have produced that outcome, but Reuters was unable to confirm that.
