In 2004, after the false advertising case of Beijing Xinxing Hospital, "how to regulate the advertising behavior of private hospitals" had triggered a national discussion. The case of Hangzhou Huaxia Hospital has attracted national attention, making this issue surface again.
The nightmare of 38 patients
According to media reports, in July and August 2005, Hangzhou Huaxia Hospital published a medical advertisement in the media to publicize its newly introduced "minimally invasive surgery of immune balance adjustment". The advertisement claimed that "24 hours after the operation, joint pain will be significantly reduced or disappear, and the activity function of the lesion will be restored in two or three days", and that "only one operation is needed, and you will have lifelong health". From July to November of that year, 38 patients received this kind of surgery. They did not expect, waiting for their own is a greater pain: in the total **** paid 255,000 yuan of treatment costs, these patients are not healed, but also varying degrees of hoarseness, coughing, nausea and other symptoms, the situation is the most serious patients even living and living can not take care of themselves.
In the 38 patients to endure the pain of the disease, a message to let them stunned: as early as July Hangzhou Huaxia Hospital advertisement at the same time, Hangzhou Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce found that the advertisement is suspected of false propaganda, and in September ordered it to stop publishing, and imposed a fine of 10,000 yuan. Learning of this news, the patients were furious, in November jointly to the Hangzhou Jianggan District Health Bureau mediation application. After mediation, the two sides reached an agreement at the end of December, with Hangzhou Huaxia Hospital providing free treatment and review, and refunding all medical expenses.
Everything seems to be very smooth, but after the mediation results came out, Hangzhou Huaxia Hospital took out a protocol, openly requiring these patients to accept the hospital treatment at the same time to give up all other rights, and ensure that the word is not mentioned, and "return all medical costs" commitment has also become "! Refund a part of". In order to cure, the patients were forced to sign the agreement, but even so, they did not fully recover. At the beginning of March this year, they jointly complained to the Industrial and Commercial Bureau of Zhejiang Province. After investigation, the Bureau of Industry and Commerce determined that Hangzhou Huaxia Hospital's advertisements deceived and misled consumers, belonging to the typical false medical advertisements, and referred it to the public security department for trial.
The rapid development of private hospitals
The reason why the issue of false advertisements of Hangzhou Huaxia Hospital has attracted so much attention is that one important reason is the rapid development of private hospitals in recent years.
Xu Liang, chairman of the private hospital committee of the Beijing Hospital Association, told reporters that private hospitals, also known as non-public hospitals, are not funded by the government but mainly from social funds. Currently, there are more than 2,200 private medical institutions in Beijing alone, and 250 of them have the scale of a hospital, compared with only a few dozen before 2000. From the 2005 national private hospital management annual meeting and private hospital integrity development forum revealed information that China has nearly 4,000 private hospitals, which does not include clinics and other small private medical institutions.
Guo Xiaohui, vice president of the First Hospital of Peking University, pointed out that because of their profitability, many private hospitals are able to provide better services than public hospitals, which is the main reason why they can take root in the city. In underdeveloped areas or on the fringes of large cities, there is a relative lack of medical resources, and private hospitals fill the gap. For migrant workers and other people without health insurance, private hospitals are also a new option.
What are the tricks of false medical advertisements
However, this new medical model has attracted a lot of questions because of false advertisements of individual hospitals. The reporter learned that in 2005, Shanghai, 26 hospitals in violation of the incident, 25 occurred in private hospitals, the main problem is false advertising. To this end, the Shanghai Municipal Food and Drug Administration has identified private hospitals as a key target for remediation this year. From last year's health, industry and commerce departments to monitor the situation, "the use of false advertising to induce patients" is also one of the key issues.
So, what are the tricks of these false medical ads, and how can patients distinguish them?
The most common, and most likely to make patients fall for the trick is to "exaggerate the efficacy", the treatment success rate said close to or even reached 100%. Zhao Chun, secretary-general of the private branch of the Chinese Hospital Management Association, told reporters that the core of medical advertising is the efficacy of treatment, but from the point of view of the laws of medicine, the most difficult to guarantee is precisely the efficacy of treatment. Each person's situation is different, the same kind of drugs or surgery in different people, the efficacy of certain differences. To ensure that a drug or surgery has a cure rate of more than 95%, basically impossible. Xu Liang said, as long as you see the "cure", "the best", "guaranteed efficacy" and other words, must be false advertising, because the advertising law does not allow such words.
In addition to exaggerating the efficacy of treatment, some private hospitals in the advertisement will also use the following means of counterfeiting: First, exaggerating the qualifications of experts. According to the Department of Health of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang private hospitals, medical staff, attending physician or more than 12.05%, but as much as 46.94% of the secondary school education. Doctors do not have enough qualifications to attract patients, we have to rely on advertising to hold up. Like the Huaxia Hospital incident of the main knife doctor Wang Zhiyi, in the advertisement was publicized as the president of the three hospitals as a director; but the relevant departments of the investigation found that this person is the Hebei Province, Xinxing Casting Pipe Limited Liability Company hospital surgeon, only last year in Hangzhou Huaxia Hospital registration. Secondly, exaggerated strength, to the ordinary departments under the title of "diagnosis and treatment center" and other titles, showing that the hospital scale, strength is not bad. And according to the regulations, the name of the hospital advertisement must be consistent with the name of the licensed department, there can not be a word difference.
In addition, there are experts pointed out that the use of high-tech words to fool the patients, the instrument said advanced, is also a false medical ads commonly used means of deception.
Why are false medical advertisements so prevalent
Why do private hospitals always have problems with false medical advertisements, and where do these advertisements live? Xu Liang believes that there are several reasons:
One is the bottom of the starting point. Some private hospitals are developed from the social medical development, originally not standardized; some are from the beginning of the contracting department, the strength is not enough to force the upgrade to hospital. In addition, there is a part of the hospital by other industry businessmen, these people do not understand the medical rules and regulations, is bound to cause irregularities.
Secondly, many private hospitals are not strong enough financial strength, therefore, they choose more men, gynecology, dermatology and other "less money" of the regular treatment subjects. In order to attract more customers, they adopt false propaganda.
Third, some advertisers and the media are in cahoots. Nowadays, many media advertising revenue mainly comes from medical advertisements, and some proportion is even more than 60%, and a large number of advertising companies rely on medical advertisements to survive. In order to make a profit, some advertisers and media outlets are willing to publish false medical advertisements.
How to manage the private hospital advertising
Xu Liang told reporters that at present, medical advertising is mainly private hospitals and public hospitals in some of the contracted departments, so the focus of regulation is still in the private hospital advertising.
The first is to increase the punishment. Xu Liang believes that, in foreign countries, once the discovery of false medical advertisements, the responsible party may be fined all the money. However, in China, the penalty is often only tens of thousands of dollars, and some hospitals even include the cost of false advertising penalties in their costing. Therefore, heavy penalties are a necessary means to eliminate false medical advertisements.
The second is to increase supervision. It is reported that since the second half of last year, for various reasons, there has been a regulatory vacuum in western medical advertisements in Zhejiang, which can be published without review. Zhao Chun pointed out that the health department to review the content of the advertisement, the industry and commerce department to check whether the advertisement is published in accordance with the approval of the health department, must be good at these two passes.
Third, to improve the level of private hospitals, so that they have enough "confidence" in their own quality of care, which is the most fundamental way to solve the problem of false medical ads. The first is talent: Guangdong experts in the discussion of private hospitals pointed out that most of the medical staff of private hospitals are public hospitals have retired or just graduated doctors, and many from factories and mining hospitals. Second is the level of hospital equipment and management, many private hospitals can not meet the requirements of the health sector. Guo Xiaohui said that foreign private hospitals have foundations and consortia support, China's public hospitals have state investment - these are private hospitals do not have. Financial strength directly affects the level of equipment, hospital scale and talent pool, so it is necessary to increase investment in private hospitals.
Finally, the experts said, to eliminate false medical advertisements, the popularization of medical knowledge is essential. Only let the people understand that responsible doctors and hospitals will not pat themselves on the back to ensure that the "cure", "medicine to the disease", false advertising to lose the "folk base", and ultimately die.