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Chinese Complain About Medicine Prices
Chinese people are complaining about the prices of medicine, a latest survey reveals.
Latest statistics released by the Ministry of Health show that Chinese have to spend 79 yuan (9.52 US dollars) on average each time they see a doctor while each inpatient must pay on average 2, 891 yuan. Patients pay more than 60 percent of all the medical expenses.
Over half of those sick in Beijing are reluctant to see doctors, "Wenhui Daily" reported Wednesday.
A senior official with the State Development Planning Commission said that medicine supply greatly exceeds demand in China.
China now has 6,000 pharmaceutical enterprises, with 1,500 Sino- foreign joint ventures, the official said.
A sales manager with a pharmaceutical company said that a new medicine is usually priced ten times of its production cost, the Shanghai-based newspaper said.
The State Economic and Trade Commission medicine department said that a great number of medicine dealers are frequenting hospitals selling drugs.
Beijing has more than 10,000 such dealers who are busy inviting pharmacy heads in hospitals to extravagant dinners, buying them expensive household electrical appliances, paying their overseas traveling bills, or even directly giving them money.
A medicine representative said that pharmaceutical companies would naturally count additional expense into the cost of drugs, the newspaper said.
Administrative authorities recently announced price cut for 57 kinds of medicines, mainly antibiotics, and are also trying to separate pharmacies from hospitals.
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