Following student’s death, China bans hospitals from outsourcing clinics

World Today

China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission, the country’s top health authority, has banned all hospitals in the country from outsourcing any clinic to third-party service providers.

It also reiterated that hospitals should refrain from false advertising, and called off clinical application of cellular immunity treatment.

This follows an ongoing cancer treatment scandal with a Beijing hospital affiliated with China’s armed police.

A 21-year-old university student died last month after receiving a failed cancer treatment from the hospital which the hospital claimed was very effective.

Before he died, the victim had blasted the hospital in an online post, accusing it of false advertising.

However, the clinic from which the victim received treatment is reportedly to have been outsourced by the hospital to health care companies from the city of Putian in southeast China’s Fujian province. The companies have a reputation for false advertising and over-prescribing medications.

The specific cancer treatment, known as cellular immunity treatment, has also been called off from any clinical application by the authority at this point.

Cracking down on false advertising for healthcare products and medical institutions is one of the major tasks of China’s newly-revised advertising law, which came into effect in September last year.

Story by China Radio International.