Placing People Before Profit?

Providing health care to over 1.3 billion people is a feat that doctors, hospitals and the Chinese government deal with daily. It seems that any single person able to make a significance difference in improving the health of thousands in any population should be lauded. While this is the case for a Chinese doctor, Hu Weimin, he is also being shunned by hospitals for interfering with their profits. Dr. Hu is harmful to the hospital businesses in China because he provides widespread free advice on the most common treatable illnesses in his home region of the Hunan province. In a country where citizens pay more out-of-pocket for health care than any other nation in the world, it is seems appalling that hospitals discourage preventative medicine.

Currently it seems that some Chinese hospital management have a primary focus of commercial profit rather than public service. While hospitals recognize that they need reform, it is unfortunate that financial incentives bring corruption into these environments of healing. Bonuses are given to doctors who prescribe laser surgeries and certain Chinese & imported drugs. Doctors profit directly from this reward system, which provides a substantial part of their salary. A fateful byproduct of the greed stemming from doctors trying to make a better living includes the mis-prescription of drugs. Though this probably occurs from time to time in the US, it is a scary thought to think a doctor could be misusing their medical expertise to profit…I hope I don't need to go to a Chinese hospital for fear I might receive incorrect medication. While any business has a necessity to prosper, hospitals are organizations which have moral obligations to put the people first.

Since millions of Chinese can not afford health care it is critical that preventative medicine be more widespread. While Dr. Hu is hero leading the way, saving lives and substantial amounts of revenue, he is also causing major headaches for hospitals. Perhaps hospitals should help Dr. Hu’s cause and create preventative programs to teach the masses easy ways to alleviate commonly treatable sicknesses. When do businesses go too far to make a buck? Should the government be policing these hospitals to minimize corruption?