With the growing economic links between China and Africa there are as many as 100,000 Africans in Guangzhou but they lack access to healthcare, an article in The Lancet this weeks says. Africans in China face racial discrimination, which fuels mental health problems and also is a barrier to them getting access to needed health services and support. Many Chinese people maintain stereotypes toward Africans viewing them as prone to violence and posing risks to public health through spreading diseases, the article says. While China sends medical teams to Africa, it ignores the Africans living within China.
"Providing Africans medical care is consistent with China's health-care reform, but the system has failed to close the treatment gap. Chinese doctors are not trained in culturally adapted care or in the management of specific diseases affecting Africans, and translation services are unavailable," the article concludes.
More Chinese medical tourists
Affluent Chinese are now seeking medical care overseas, according to CCTV. Their report says more Chinese are going to foreign countries for treatment and the trend is blamed on the lack of access to high quality clinics in China.
No takers for dispute insurance
Few people are choosing to take part in a new surgical insurance program that is designed to reduce medical disputes. The new medical insurance scheme pays only in the event of unsatisfactory results caused by medical malpractice not covered by traditional medical indemnity insurance.
Bionic ears work well in China
Cochlear implants have been used successfully in hundreds of Chinese deaf children and have had few complications, according to a new report from Henan. Cochlear implantation is a safe procedure and early postoperative complications are minor, say clinicians from the Department of Otology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.
Fake doctor did nearly 1500 operations
A bogus surgeon working at a gynaecology clinic in Henan performed 1485 operations on women and made almost half a million yuan in profit before being caught, Zhengzhou media report. The Pingdangshan court sentenced bogus doctor Ma Juan to nine years in prison and fined him 300,00 yuan for performing minimally invasive surgery on women at the Third Peoples Hospital gynaecology clinic. The manager of the clinic was also jailed for 12 years for employing the fake doctor and encouraging him to exaggerate illness and overtreat women with unnecessary but profitable operations such as cervical cauterisation and nerve blocks.
Psych clinic has few words of comfort
A Chongqing father has complained of extortionate charges and poor doctor-patient communication at a mental health clinic where he took his uncommunicative 'autistic' daughter for treatment. The man told the Chongqing Evening News that he had to pay almost 1000 yuan for antidepressant medicines after a brief consultation with a doctor who did not speak more than ten words to him or his daughter. The father sad the costs for the questionnaire test and brief consultation were excessive. A medical expert said mental health clinics were under a lot of time pressure and were not designed to provide psychotherapy but to treat psychiatric diseases. If patients want to talk more they should visit a psychologist, he suggested.
