A Chinese medical worker prepares to vaccinate a young kid at a hospital in Shanghai, China, March 20, 2016. [Photo/IC] Thirty-three people are being held accountable after 145 babies in Jinhu county, Jiangsu province, were given expired polio vaccine, local authorities announced on Sunday. The Huaian city government, which has jurisdiction over the county, said on its website that Gu Kun, a vice-mayor of the city, and Sun Banggui, director of its health commission, have been given administrative warnings. Zhang Zhiyong, the Party secretary of the county, and Xu Yaping, who heads the government, have been given serious Party warnings. Wang Hong, head of the Licheng Health Center, where the vaccinations were given, has been detained on suspicion of duty-related crimes. Six people directly involved in the incident, including Liu Zhibing, deputy head of the center, have been dismissed from their posts and the Party. Liu has been transferred to judicial authorities for prosecution. The babies received expired polio vaccine at the health center in the county's Licheng township from Dec 11 to Jan 7. The incident came to light in early January, after a father who is a medical worker took his son to the center to get the vaccine. When he checked the batch number printed in the boy's vaccination record book he found it had expired. The provincial government sent a special team to investigate the incident. Examinations of the babies conducted by medical experts found that none had acquired abnormal health conditions related to the expired vaccine. The operations of the health center in Licheng have been corrected, and it has reopened for vaccinations, the city government website said. The provincial government ordered Jinhu county to conduct in-depth reviews and apologize to the provincial and city governments. The city government and the provincial health commission have also been told to conduct reviews and apologize to the provincial government. The province is formulating a plan to improve the vaccine management system and clarify the responsibilities of local governments, regulatory authorities and medical institutions. The safety of vaccines became a hot topic last year when Changchun Changsheng, one of the country's major vaccine producers, was found to have fabricated production records and to have used expired materials from 2014 in the production of rabies vaccine. It also produced a substandard DTaP vaccine, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. silicon wristbandscamo silicone wristbandsanimal shaped bracelets rubbercustom silicone wristbandssilicone wristbands no minimum
Shenyang Friendship Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Kidney Diseases. The hospital has been required to suspend business pending after inspectors found faking patients' medical records to claim health insurance money from government agencies. [Photo/IC] They can be paid up to 100,000 yuan in latest effort to fight insurance scams Insurance authorities will financially reward whistleblowers who identify healthcare scams as part of the ongoing fight against fraud, according to a circular released by the National Healthcare Security Administration and the Ministry of Finance. If the activity was unknown to the local healthcare insurance department before the report, informants could receive a percentage of the amount involved in the fraud after it is proved, the circular said. Rewards should not exceed 100,000 yuan ($14,480), it added. The circular was made public on Saturday after being released earlier to provincial-level healthcare security administrations. Members of the public can report fraudulent practices by operators of healthcare insurance funds, medical institutions and pharmacies and their employees, as well as by individual insurance subscribers, it said. Fraudulent practices include fabricating medical services and documents, providing fake invoices to subscribers, faking of medical service invoices by subscribers, lending a healthcare security card to others or receiving medical services with another person's card to profit from the fund. Whistleblowers can use their names or make anonymous reports, but they must confirm their identity before they can collect any reward. Healthcare insurance authorities at various levels should protect the privacy of informants, the circular said. The introduction of the regulation is the latest effort by healthcare authorities in a campaign to fight insurance fraud. Last month, a China Central Television report accused two hospitals in Shenyang, Liaoning province, of fraudulent practices, including hospitalizing insurance subscribers after faking diagnoses to get insurance funds. Police detained at least 37 suspects after the report. At a news conference in November, the National Healthcare Insurance Administration vowed to intensify its fight against insurance scams across China, focusing on hospitals, pharmacies and subscribers. It released telephone numbers for making reports in all 31 mainland provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. Healthcare insurance authorities face severe challenges in supervision of the insurance fund, and fraudulent practices of various sorts continue to occur, which seriously affect the security of healthcare insurance funds, said Huang Huabo, an insurance fund supervisor with the administration. We hope intensifying public supervision will help authorities discover problems in a timely manner and prevent insurance scams, he said. China's healthcare authorities have punished a number of violators since September, when a national campaign was launched to fight scams. In Changchun, Jilin province, 761 medical institutions were given punishments, including being made ineligible to receive payments from the city's healthcare insurance fund and even suspension of business, according to the administration. More than 95 percent of people in China are covered by basic healthcare insurance programs, which are heavily subsidized by the government. Reimbursement policies vary with different groups.
