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Zhuang Pinghui

When Zhang Yang boarded a flight from Shenyang to Beijing last month he was embarking on a life-threatening ordeal that would prompt an inquiry into one of the capital’s two ambulance services.
The Liaoning TV journalist endured not only the pain of an abdominal hernia and acute intestinal obstruction on the flight, treatment for his condition was allegedly delayed on the ground by the service taking Zhang to one of its own lower-level medical centres rather than a top-tier hospital.
The Beijing Health and Family Planning Commission has yet to conclude its investigation into Zhang’s treatment at the hands of the Beijing Red Cross Emergency Medical Centre, known as 999, but Zhang said on his microblog last night that the centre had apologised.
Industry insiders claim that part of the problem is that emergency workers are paid for every patient they send to an affiliated medical centre.
READ MORE: China Southern Airlines apologises after ill passenger forced to wait 50 minutes after landing before leaving for life-saving surgery
The centre did not respond to requests for comment.
According to his accounts online, Zhang was sent initially to an airport medical centre, a level 2A facility in the mainland’s three-tier system.
It was there that a doctor advised that he be transferred to a top-tier hospital but a 999 ambulance reportedly took him to the second-tier Beijing Red Cross Emergency Medical Centre, which shares a website with the 999 service.
Zhang said he was told he would not be able to get into a hospital that was closer and better equipped, even though experts say his symptoms would have ensured him admission to any emergency room.
Instead, Zhang spent hours on a gurney in extreme pain without proper treatment in the 999 medical centre while the centre’s doctor thought he was a drug addict faking withdrawal, Zhang said on his blog.
A friend of Zhang’s who is a doctor insisted that he be sent to a proper hospital, where 80cm of his small intestine was removed.
“Patients should be sent to hospitals that are close and capable of handling acute conditions,” a veteran Beijing emergency rescue medic said. “But in practice, an ambulance can send patients to small, private hospitals because they can be paid for sending patients there.”
In practice, an ambulance can send patients to small, private hospitals because they can be paid for sending patients there
Doctor and friend of Zhang
News portal Sohu.com quoted one doctor as saying that ambulance teams received 300 yuan (HK$362) and 10 per cent of treatment fees for sending patients to affiliated centres.
Beijing is the only mainland city that has two separate emergency medical services. The Beijing Emergency Medical Centre, or 120, is administered by the city’s heath authority, while 999 is affiliated with the Beijing Red Cross Society.
This is despite national health authorities demanding a decade ago that all such services come under the 120 number. Municipal health authorities have no jurisdiction over the 999 service.
Concerns about 999’s operations have surfaced in court cases. According to the online archives of the Supreme People’s Court, the Beijing No3 Intermediate People’s Court last year held the Beijing Red Cross Emergency Medical Centre 50 per cent responsible for the death of patients in two separate cases who were taken by 999 ambulances to their own medical centre against family wishes.
999 also has higher fatality rates than the 120 service, according to the capital’s health authority. Last year, 999 transferred 35,760 patients in severe or critical condition and 1,680 of them died. 120 transferred 60,423 patients and 704 died.
There have been efforts to integrate the two services but one source said “the two sides could not reach common ground”.


Alarm bells ring for Chinese practice of paying ambulance staff to favour affiliated medical centres  

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eijing is the only Chinese city that has two separate emergency medical services. File Photo

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Alarm bells ring for Chinese practice of paying ambulance staff to favour affiliated medical centres

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