by A rare representation of public anger unfolds in China about the quality of medicines produced in their own country.
A prominent Shanghai surgeon pointed to anesthetics that do not put patients to sleep. A respected cardiologist in Beijing interviewed the blood pressure medication that could not regulate. A former editor on a leading online health platform went so far that he accused domestic drug makers of fraud.
The worries fell in public discussions this week when some top doctors and hospital leaders called for the government to change how drugs buy for his public hospitals.
The eruption of control, unusual in a country where the authorities keep public criticism on the government accurately, was a reprimand of the Beijing campaign to reduce medical costs. Civil servants are working on China’s national health care system, which is partly under financial pressure due to a rapidly aging population.
The policy, which was introduced in 2018, Encourages fierce competition between medicines manufacturers and has been successful in strongly increasing drug prices. But this year, drugs abroad were largely absent in the government list of medicines that fall under China’s national health insurance and are offered in public hospitals.
The change has effectively unpacked many foreign pharmaceutical companies that do not want to compete against Chinese companies that want to sell their medicines at rock bottom prices.
Now doctors sound alarm about the efficacy of some domestic medicines. The doctors are looking for changes to give patients the choice to pay more for alternatives.
“There have always been grumbling that if you lower the price, manufacturers will lower the corners,” said Helen Chen, a managing partner and Health Zorgexpert at Lek Consulting in Shanghai. “Now there are some public voices that say it is happening.”
After years of not reducing costs, the government created a central bidding system that preferred cheaper medicines, which in most cases were made generic medicines made by Chinese companies. In exchange, the government would be guaranteed to buy more from every supplier.
Public hospitals account for around 70 percent of the Chinese drug market. Patients using private clinics have easier access to a broader choice of medication, including foreign brands.
The annual bidding system, known as volume-based purchasing, has more than halved the price of most medicines and Beijing saved more than $ 50 billion for the first five years, according to the most recent available government data.
“The national purchasing system keeps prices low,” says Zheng Minhua, the director surgery in the prestigious Ruijin -Hospital in Shanghai, in a video interview by a local state media.
But, he added: “For such a low price, the quality of the drug can be unreliable”, with reference to various examples, including antibiotics that have caused allergies, blood pressure medication that does not reduce blood pressure and laxatives that do not have their work done.
Dr. Zheng was one of the more than 20 doctors and members of the Communist Party who submitted a proposal this week to the government who allowed patients to get an original brand of medicine, even if it was not on the approved purchasing list. Insurance allowance would be adjusted, depending on whether the drug came from an original brand of medicine or a generic one.
The head of cardiology in the Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Lu Changlin, submitted a similar proposal that suggests that doctors and patients should not be forced to use the medicines on the purchasing list.
The growing pushback of the medical community has been so strong that the Chinese National Healthcare Security Administration, which is responsible for national medical insurance policies, sent officials to Shanghai to speak to doctors and to investigate clinical data for the medicines.
“There is no regulations that prohibit purchasing or use of imported and brand medicines,” said it in a statement this week.
After the public protest, some medical professionals started investigating the tests for some generic medicines. In a message on social media, Xia Zhimin, a doctor in the Hangzhou of traditional Chinese medicine, compared data from the tests with original medicines with those of the same medicines in generic form and found too many similarities, where questions were raised about the question Or the data was fraudulent, Dr. Xia.
“The figures are exactly the same, even up to two decimal places,” Dr. wrote Xia, the former editor -in -chief of Ding Xiang Doctor, a popular online forum for medical professionals.
“They are Chinese generic drugs that have poor quality,” he said.
In a statement on Friday, a unit of the Chinese National Medical Products Administration recognized the duplicated data and said that this was the result of “editing processing errors when the relevant product information was announced.”
The issue has hit a rough nerve when many people feel a sense of uncertainty of the Chinese decline and sputtering consumer economy.
“If this is not a bottom line, I don’t know what is,” Meng Chang wrote, one Journalist and host of a popular podcast, in a social media post that was later removed.
“The vast majority of good doctors are in the public system,” wrote Mr. Meng. “But now, if you want imported medicines and surgical equipment, you have to go to the private sector.”
Most Chinese families see doctors in a hospital when they are sick. National medical insurance, which varies from province to province, usually covers almost three -quarters of the costs of each prescribed drugs.
On social media, some patients and doctors have said that the rise of generic brands in hospitals has made it difficult to find even original foreign brand medicines, such as Bayer’s Avelox -Antibiotic Medicine.
Li Xiang, a doctor from northeastern China, shared a story about how one of her family members needed an imported medicine that was no longer available in public hospitals. But when she tried to contact a representative for the manufacturer, she was told that the medicine was not in stock.
Dr. Li criticized the government’s purchasing system and said it resulted in an oversupply of drugs that people do not want to use and too few alternatives.
“You say that medical insurance is running out and that you cannot use it to buy imported medicines. I understand that, “wrote Dr. Li. But, she added, she was willing to do everything, even sell her house to secure the imported medicine.
“I will not run the risk of switching to other substitutes for fear that the drug will not work and the condition will come back,” she wrote. “This is about the life of a family member.”
