Zhang Yu, a medical oncologist at Peking University’s Third Hospital, has drawn attention to the medical insider’s story (Photo source: Internet)
In April, Dr. Zhang Yu, a medical oncologist at Peking University’s Third Hospital, wrote an article on the platform Zhihu criticizing the system for corruption and doctors’ profit-making, which led to a large number of patients spending money in vain and ultimately being left with no money. The article sparked a public outcry, and the Communist Party’s National Health Care Commission subsequently intervened to investigate, but concluded that the principles of treatment in the Shanghai case Zhang Yu described were largely in line with the norms. In another May 5 post on Zhihu, Zhang Yu described the commission’s findings as a head-butt, and said he hoped the commission would give him a chance to debate the matter with a panel of experts, and that if he lost, he would be willing to have his physician’s license revoked.
On May 5, Zhang Yu, a medical oncologist at Peking University’s Third Hospital, posted on the Zhihu platform that he and Dr. Lu Wei were strangers and had no grudges, and that the reason for his repeated accusations and complaints was that he thought Lu Wei was a scum of the earth, “a very despicable kind of doctor who sucks the marrow out of patients. Originally, he was happy to be taken seriously by the Health Care Commission and thought he would get a happy ending, but the findings of the Commission’s investigation were like a bang on the head, clearly telling everyone that there was basically nothing wrong with Dr. Lu Wei’s principles of treating patients, and that there were only minor mistakes.
He stressed that this is not a small matter, but a matter of great right and wrong, about which he is really disappointed, and also has anger and concern. He believes that if even this haphazard and unprecedented five-drug combination treatment by Dr. Lu Wei is a treatment that does not violate the principles, then luring patients into blood NGS sequencing and unauthorized bioimmunotherapy are only minor problems, “this conclusion is actually endorsing all the medical malpractices, in this way, the future tumor treatment in China is likely to be even less standardized to speak of “.
He also stressed that he was equally very sure that the expert panel’s opinion was wrong and the conclusion in question was an outright lie. For this reason, he sincerely requested the Health Care Commission to allow him and the entire panel of experts to have a public debate in the media on the issue of whether medical principles were violated in the case of Dr. Lu Wei, and if he lost, he requested the Health Care Commission to revoke his license to practice medicine and disqualify him from practicing medicine for life without complaint; conversely, he requested the Health Care Commission to replace the panel of experts and review the matter of Lu Wei for a second time, expecting a more He requested the Health Care Commission to replace the expert panel and review Lu Wei’s case for a second time, hoping for a fairer and more equitable outcome.
Dr. Zhang Yu’s long article exposes the shady medical practices
In an April 18 post on the Chinese Q&A platform Zhihu, Zhang Yu cited official Chinese Communist Party figures that 4.57 million new cancers and 3 million deaths will occur in China by 2020, meaning that two-thirds of cancer patients will not be saved. According to Zhang Yu, many of the causes of high cancer mortality are due to irregular or even incorrect treatment, except for a small number of advanced cancers that are difficult to treat. In his career, he has witnessed a significant percentage of patients spending unnecessarily high amounts of money, and a certain percentage of patients dying because of irregular or incorrect treatment. Although it is difficult to keep track of this percentage, it is likely to be higher than one might expect.
In his article, Zhang Yu lists many cases he has seen, including giving patients the wrong treatment for cancer, giving patients drugs without investigation, doctors giving patients unnecessary treatment to get more kickbacks, giving patients high-priced drugs, treating different cancer patients with the same anti-cancer drug, giving patients unnecessary radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and taking advantage of patients’ families’ low medical knowledge to trick patients into increasing the number of treatment modalities.
Zhang Yu said in the article that because there are a lot of unscrupulous medical practices and some unscrupulous doctors in tumor treatment, patients are often worried about their money after suffering from tumor, and they are afraid of talking about hospitals and even refuse to go to regular hospitals for treatment. Tumor treatment is not only expensive but also ineffective, and the hospital doctors are just trying to make money, and in the end, it is very likely that people will lose their lives and money.
After citing many examples, Zhang Yu said that such real-life cases are happening all the time, and each one of them may mean a broken family or even a return to poverty. Zhang Yu also criticized Lu Wei, a professor at a well-known tertiary hospital in Shanghai, for taking advantage of his patients’ ignorance and desire to live to make a black income.
According to Zhang Yu, Lu Wei admitted a patient with AFP-positive advanced gastric cancer, which is rare, but should be treated according to the treatment protocols for ordinary gastric cancer. Usually, first-line, second-line and third-line treatments for gastric cancer do not cost much and are reimbursed by the state. But Lu Wei was not satisfied, and as a result, the patient’s survival period was significantly shortened, and the cost was more than 10 times higher than conventional treatment, leaving him with no savings and more than 100,000 debts.
According to Zhang Yu, the biggest problem with medical care is not that it is drug-based, but that the lack of oversight has led some doctors to act recklessly. He couldn’t accept the fact that the mortality rate of innocent patients increased and even died as a result of doctors’ bad medical practices.
After Zhang Yu’s above article was published, it sparked a buzz in Chinese social media, and he later claimed that he was pressured to delete the article on the 19th, while the National Health Care Commission of the Communist Party of China said it would thoroughly investigate Zhang Yu’s complaint. Afterwards, some mainland media went to Beihang Hospital to find out more about the situation and learned that Zhang Yu had been out of the clinic for more than a week. A staff member said that Zhang Yu was not on the clinic schedule for the last two weeks and did not know when he would resume his consultations.
Zhang Yu said in the interview that he was not comfortable speaking out right now and that it might affect his career, and that he could only have a brief conversation. He said he was not opposed to individualized treatment, but that some doctors were making random protocols for profit and using some drugs that were contrary to treatment principles. After the article was published, he was rebuked and even abused by many of his predecessors. Zhang Yu says he knows the real reason behind this, and that he has unmasked the “vested interests”.
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