China's Ministry of Health will take firm measures to curb soaring medicine prices, said Han Qide, vice-chairman of Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPC) Tuesday.

The ministry has decided to ban hospitals from raising medicine prices and requiring patients to pay the added costs. This policy will be launched soon, said Han during a Central Television program.

The Chinese government used to pay subsidies to hospitals according to the number of patients they received. Later, instead of getting subsidies, hospitals were allowed to raise medicine prices by 15 percent before they are sold to patients in order to make a profit.

However, the latter policy resulted in soaring prices of medicine and doctors sometimes sold medicine to patients which were either unnecessary or expensive.

According to Han, the profit of selling medicine could reach 60percent of the total annual profits in large hospitals in recent years. The percentage is even higher in small and medium-sized hospitals.

The government has tried various measures to cut medicine prices, but none has been effective, Han said. Depriving hospitals of the right to raise prices will have great impact on the reform of China's medicare system.

Figures released by the latest national health survey show a Chinese citizen pays 108.2 yuan (13 US dollars) in out-patient departments in 2003, up 57.5 percent over 1998; while paying 3,910yuan (477 US dollars) in in-patient departments in 2003, up 76.1 percent over 1998. Both of the two percentages are much higher than the growth rate of people's income.

In China, a lot of medicine are sold at the price 10 times as much as it comes out from pharmaceutical factories.

"There are many illegal operations in the intermediary process", said Han.

A rural doctor for 11 years who has also worked in Beijing hospitals, Han has been showing concern and giving advice to the government over the health sector and the reform of the medicare system.

Source: Xinhua