March 22, 2007

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As weak as...

Colloquial Australian have many uses of the word "piss", including to emphasise the weakness of something or alcoholic beverages. For example, "American piss is piss-weak". Bear that in mind while reading this from today's (unlinkable but soon to be improved) SCMP on a test done in some Chinese hopsitals:

Can analysis of a cup of green tea indicate that you are sick? The answer is probably yes - if you are having a test done at a hospital in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province. Television journalists, investigating viewers' complaints that they had been overcharged in hospitals, passed off the tea as urine samples and submitted them for tests.

Six out of 10 hospitals, including two state-owned provincial-level ones, said they found white blood corpuscles or red blood cells in the samples and concluded that the "patient's" urinary tract was infected. Five of the six hospitals prescribed medicine costing up to 1,300 yuan. The Zhejiang Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, rated one of the best in the province, suggested the patient undergo liver function tests.

"The samples were taken from the same cup of green tea. We later ordered a test for the tea and found no red blood cells or white blood corpuscles," said a Zhejiang Television Station journalist who headed the investigation. A biology professor confirmed blood cells could not be found in the tea, even though it might be contaminated, the journalist said...Several hospitals later blamed "low-quality lab technicians" for the scandal when confronted by the programme. They said microscope observations should follow a machine test of the urine sample, but some technicians might omit the procedure, or, in some cases, modify their own results to match the ones from the machine.

"They said something like `the technicians are of low quality. They trust the machines because they are very good and expensive'," the journalist said.

Zhejiang health authorities have ordered a thorough investigation of the scandal and told laboratory technicians to "raise their quality", but the case has stirred anger nationwide amid growing discontent over the mainland's failing health care system. "Patients have become automatic teller machines for the hospitals," read a commentary by Guangzhou-based newspaper the Southern Metropolis News.

Those hospitals are taking the piss.

posted by Simon on 03.22.07 at 11:39 AM in the China food/environment/health category.




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