Hospital chief suspended for overcharging patient

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ZHOU HANXIN, head of the Shenzhen People’s Hospital, has been suspended from his post after an investigation confirmed that a patient had been overcharged, the city’s health bureau announced yesterday. Chen Jianliang, vice director of the neurological surgery department, and Liu Lijun, head nurse of the department, have also been suspended. The city is launching a one-month campaign to stamp out arbitrary medical fees and tighten medical service standards, the city’s health chief Jiang Hanping said yesterday at an emergency meeting. Shenzhen Party chief Li Hongzhong ordered a crackdown on irregularities in the city’s medical sector after CCTV exposed the overcharging by the hospital last Thursday. Yu Quntao, a local resident, found the hospital had charged his father-in-law, who was identified only as Sun, for 25 hours’ use of a perspiration monitor in a single day, the CCTV report said. Sun stayed in the hospital for 67 days until he was discharged Dec. 4. On another day, the hospital charged him for 27 hours of monitor use. The CCTV report said Yu paid nearly 30,000 yuan (US$3,750) for Sun’s usage of the perspiration and heartbeat monitor, a sum large enough to purchase three monitoring devices.