China probes mental hospitals over reports patients are being locked up in insurance scam
Media reports of psychiatric institutes locking up patients - including people without mental illness - as part of an insurance scam triggered a nationwide review.
Chinese flag outside a government office building in Beijing on Feb 8, 2024. (Photo: Reuters/Florence Lo)
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China’s top medical watchdog has ordered a nationwide review of the country’s psychiatric institutes following media reports that multiple hospitals in central China had locked up patients - including people who were not suffering from mental illness - as part of an insurance scam.
The National Healthcare Security Administration said on Wednesday (Feb 4) that its provincial bureaus should hold talks with directors of all psychiatric institutes in their area by Sunday.
They were also told to ensure that thorough checks into possible illegal activity were organised by Mar 15 and appropriate action taken.
Areas of investigation included whether institutes had caused people to be hospitalised for no good reason, faked medical conditions and treatment or forged documents.
“They should submit a report and refund any illegally used medical insurance funds,” the statement said.
On Tuesday, the Beijing News reported that patients in multiple psychiatric institutes in Hubei province were being exploited to skim off subsidies under the national medical insurance scheme.
It alleged that hospitals often offered to admit patients for free and had sometimes fabricated diagnoses.
At one institute in Xiangyang, a reporter found more than 50 people had been admitted for free, many of whom did not appear to be suffering from mental illness.
A nurse told the reporter that some patients had been given false diagnoses, including over-70s who only wanted free care.
One caretaker said he had been given a false diagnosis of “alcohol-related mental and behavioural problems” so he could be listed as a patient.
Most of the patients had not received any psychological or behavioural treatment, even though their hospital bills charged these items to the national insurance scheme, the report said.
One caretaker told the reporter that medical staff fabricated treatment fees worth “around 130 yuan per day, totalling nearly 4,000 yuan (US$575) per month”, while another estimated that 100 patients could bring in 6 million yuan in medical insurance fees a year.
At the same time, the patients faced strict controls from the hospitals that required them to follow a daily schedule and move within designated areas, the report said, and failure to comply with rules led to physical abuse.
The reporter said they had witnessed staff at multiple hospitals slapping the patients, hitting them with a water pipe and tying them to the bed.
Some were kept in hospital for years, while contact with the outside world was cut off. One patient at a hospital in Yichang told the reporter they “felt like they were in prison”.
The report triggered a public backlash, with many questioning whether this was a common phenomenon across China and raised fears that hospitals were failing to treat those who needed it, while others were needlessly kept in hospital.
Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily called for an investigation, saying: “The hospitals treat the healthcare insurance fund as a cake to be taken and used as they please, converting patients’ health conditions into figures in their accounting books … It’s not only a blatant defiance of the law but also tramples the bottom line of morality.”
It called for stricter regulatory measures and coordination between government departments to expose those behind the scam in Hubei, adding that this would set a good example for a national crackdown.
This article was first published on SCMP.
