Super hospitals not in line with medical reform

A Chinese doctor talks with family members of a young patient as he examines him with a Type-b Ultrasonic Diagnostic Instrument at a hospital in Beijing, China, 11 September 2013. [Photo/IC]

Some super hospitals play such strong roles in the provision of public healthcare that they create a problem by diverting resources and draining talent from local hospitals. Legal Daily commented on Wednesday:

In the so-called super hospitals there are about 10,000 beds with the world's top medical equipment and more experienced clinical faculties and healthcare workers. In other words, the super hospitals have the best talent, equipment and infrastructure.

This means patients flood to these hospitals causing management problems, disputes and other issues, and there is a siphoning of talent from grassroots medical institutions. And since the super hospitals use the latest medical equipment, they need to make "super" profits. The result is an increased financial burden on patients.

The direction of medical reform is to balance the quality of medical resources and reasonably apportion patients between healthcare facilities. The super hospitals go against this by concentrating resources, and in so doing concentrating patients.

As the approach of the super hospitals and the direction of the new medical reform are not consistent, and they may form a monopoly over other small hospitals, they should be the focus of the next step of medical reform.

The scale of public hospitals should be clearly defined, including the number of beds they provide, the equipment they have, and the number of doctors and other medical staff they employ.