Following a Facebook post by well-known physician Chiang Shou-shan (江守山) suggesting that Shin-Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital in Taipei is falling apart due to financial problems, the hospital yesterday said that the nephrologist had been fired for misuse of National Health Insurance (NHI) resources.
Chiang is a well-known writer, public speaker and television guest, and is the owner of several health and food-safety-related businesses.
In the Facebook post, Chiang wrote that the hospital is nearing collapse because the enterprise that runs it had lost NT$5.5 billion (US$168.1 million) on stock investments, and had sought to increase its income by having doctors persuade patients to accept treatments not covered by the NHI system and replace imported drugs with medicines supplied by domestic companies that are willing to pay the price difference.
The doctor added that to allow the hospital to earn more money, outpatients were limited to receiving a maximum of nine types of drugs per visit, even if they have complications from various diseases.
He said that some of the hospital’s equipment is so old that some machines have exceeded their suggested service life — including dental equipment that has been in use for 23 years and a dialysis machine that has been used for 15 years, and that many well-known doctors had left because they would not tolerate the hospital’s harsh treatment of its patients.
“The number of outpatient cases has dropped from 5,200 to 2,000 per day; the hospitalization rate of the cardiology department has fallen from more than 100 percent to 60 percent. The remaining question is when it [the hospital] will close down,” Chiang wrote. “Should those people who care about this hospital not be worried?”
The hospital yesterday released a statement saying that Chiang “misused NHI resources by giving prescriptions to many of his employees to get health examinations. Because this is a serious violation of regulations, the hospital terminated his employment on Oct. 15, 2015.”
Shin-Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital assistant general manager Hung Tzu-jen (洪子仁) said that Chiang contravened the Physicians Act (醫師法) and the National Health Insurance Act (全民健保法) by giving blood test prescriptions to 44 of the employees of his other businesses without having them pay for outpatient visits.
Denying Chiang’s allegations, Hung said the hospital’s average number of daily outpatient cases between January and September was more than 4,000, its equipment is gradually being replaced — including a new dialysis machine last year — and that the hospital dispenses drugs according to the patients’ needs and regulations.
Hung said that what Chiang had written on Facebook is far from the truth and the hospital is considering taking legal action against him.
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