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Calls grow for a medical "blacklist"
醫療腐敗案頻發 倡導建立醫師黑名單制度
A chill is spreading through the medical industry. Authorities are continuing to probe a number of recent high-profile scandals.
Glaxo-SmithKline is one of the biggest foreign drugs makers to come under the spotlight.
The company is accused of using travel agencies as a conduit for bribery. The payments are said to have gone to public officials, doctors and hospitals in order to boost GSK sales and market share.
Four senior executives are currently being held by Chinese police.
The executives are alleged to have exaggerated the scale of conferences which were arranged through the travel agencies. Some conferences were completely faked.
Income was then used for bribing government officials.
"We began to cooperate with Shanghai Linjiang International Travel Service Corporation in 2010. In the following three years,around 10 conferences were held, with participants ranging from over 100 to 2-thousand. Income from the largest conferences exceeded ten million yuan," said Liang Hong, vice president of GSK (China) Investment Co.
The police investigation started at the end of June. GSK says it’s deeply "concerned and disappointed" by the allegations.
"These allegations are shameful, and we regret that this has occurred. We will cooperate fully with Chinese authorities’ investigation and will take all necessary action required," said GSK spokesman Philip Thomson.
Another potential scandal of a foreign pharmaceutical company in China involves French drug maker, Sanofi SA.
It’s reported that Sanofi staff paid bribes totalling more than 275 thousand US dollars to hundreds of doctors at hospitals in Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou.
Sanofi SA currently employs around 6,500 people in China.
Meanwhile, recent revelations that medical staff were allegedly involved in child trafficking has shocked the public.
Police in north-west China’s Shaanxi province have recovered several babies sold to human traffickers by one hospital doctor.
The doctor is said to have conned parents into believing that their babies were born with congenital defects and should be abandoned.
The doctor in question has been arrested, along with eight other suspects.
She apparently told police that she’d been selling babies for around 20,000 yuan, or 3,000 US dollars each, since 2006.
Local police say their looking into 26 cases of baby trafficking involving this one doctor.
