The Chongqing City Audit Bureau published a report stating many hospitals profited from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan in May this year. Some hospitals sold donated medicine to patients; others made false expense reports for ‘rescue work.’ Many high level executives in the Chongqing City Seventh People’s Hospital were involved in selling emergency rescue medicine to patients. They have been punished by payroll deductions to repay the charges. According to a human rights activist, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
In the report from the Audit Bureau, among the 17 cases of governmental offices embezzling or misusing resources, many of them involved donations for the earthquake in Sichuan. After investigation, the Bureau found the city’s Seventh People’s Hospital had privately sold medicines donated for earthquake victims to its patients and profited 34,000 yuan (approximately US$5,000). The Bureau ordered the Hospital to give all the money to the Red Cross and the Banan District Health Bureau will follow up on the case. The report did not mention whether the hospital employees embezzled the money.
Donated Medication Sold to Victims
Zhang from the Banan Health Bureau told the reporter, “Some hospital employees sold the victims the donated medicine at reduced prices and told them it was to help them. Many injured victims were hospitalized and the hospital was required to report the number of victims administered. The investigation found that some patients did not exist.”
The Bureau had issued warnings to the hospitals of violations according to Zhang. A month of duty allowance was deducted from the pay of every employee involved, which included hospital staff and executives. The Bureau also ordered the hospital to donate the 34,000 yuan to the Red Cross.
The reporter called the associate director of the hospital and he denied the violation, “I have never heard of it. The state hospitals cannot casually divert donations and everything must go through standard procedures. Please do not trust incorrect information found online.” As the reporter was about to inquire about more details, the associate director would not give direct answers and later he hung up the phone. He did not return later phone calls.
The Audit Bureau also stated in its report that the Bishan County People’s Hospital and the Chinese Medicine Hospital budgeted 13,900 yuan (approximately US$ 2,044) for ‘payment to specialists’ and ‘staff meal expenses’ in their rescue expenditures. The City Ministry of Civil Affairs accepted 37 million yuan (US$5.3 million) from donations but did not transfer it to the city’s rescue account in time. Another 1.28 million yuan (approximately US$ 188,235) subsidy funded by the Ministry also was not distributed to the victims in time.
Chen Yunfei, a human rights activist who’s been helping victims of the Sichuan quake to rebuild their homes said that it is common for government officials to divert or retain donations. Several days ago there were still complaints from the victims about local officials withholding their subsidies. “An official from the Red Cross was found embezzling donated cash to build houses. The authority so far has not improved its supervision. Without effective supervision, the situation is definitely getting worse because there are so many corrupt local officials who abuse their power and the authority cannot do much about them.”
Suffering Patients Expelled
Chen continued, saying that victims complained that some hospitals discharged victims who were still suffering from injuries in order to relieve their work load.
The magnitude 8 Wenchuan earthquake struck at 2:28 p.m. on May 12, 2008. It damaged over 25 million acres and caused at least 69,000 deaths. It was the most catastrophic earthquake since the Tangshan earthquake.
People from around the globe donated 40 billion yuan (US$5.7 billion) to the victims.
