Angry patients wait in vain for answers

Media exposed that the hospital had outsourced its biological treatment center to a for-profit company, which is also against regulations.

The hospital, which stopped accepting new patients on Wednesday, has declined to comment.

On Friday, the gate of the hospital was crowded with angry immunotherapy patients treated at the hospital or patients' family members.

Liu said she has registered as waiting for an explanation－giving her name, ID number, the dates she received the immunotherapy and her phone number.

"But I don't have much hope that they will give us an answer anytime soon," she said. "All they said was to go back home and wait for a reply."

Liu, a waitress in Beijing, said she had the immunotherapy at the hospital in November after she was found to have a sexually transmitted disease, but after the first round of therapy, which lasted four days and cost about 50,000 yuan, her condition was unimproved.

"Before the treatment, the doctors told me there was a more than 95 percent chance of a cure," she said.

She later went to another public hospital, and doctors there told her the disease was not serious and should not receive such an intensive treatment.

Liu said the doctor in charge of her treatment in November refused to answer her questions afterward and later could not be contacted.

A man who only gave his surname as Qian, said he was angry to find the hospital gate heavily guarded in the past few days and that he could not go inside to ask for an explanation from the doctors who treated his mother in January for kidney cancer.

He said the treatment, which cost his family about 30,000 yuan, was ineffective.

"If the therapy is of no use and falsely advertised, I want to get back all the money we spent on it," he said.