Kickbacks issued by pharmaceutical companies to doctors who prescribe their medicines have served as one of the main sources of income for Chinese doctors over the past few decades. But now, doctors might be forced to relinquish this grey income, as the Ministry of Health yesterday announced plans to clean up corruption in the medical sector.

On November 16, the Ministry of Health stated that it would prohibit hospitals and doctors from providing information regarding sales volume of particular medicines to agents or sales represenentatives from pharmaceutical companies.

Doctors, as well as their managers, will be severely punished if they are found to have collected or released such information.

Usually, after receiving information about drug sales, pharmaceutical company representatives will then provide doctors with monetary kickbacks in proportion to the amount and type of medicine that they have prescribed and sold to patients.

According to the newly announced regulations, the superiors of any doctors who release such information will also be held accountable.

Chinese hospital patients have long complained about unreasonably high medical expenses and the current widespread systen of kickbacks is widely believed to contribute to the problem.

In one recent example, dozens of doctors at six hospitals in the city of Hangzhou, the capital of the southeastern province of Zhejiang, were recently accused of receiving bribes from a pharmaceutical company called Tairui Yiliao (泰瑞醫(yī)療).

According to a report on Zhejiang News Online, the accusations first appeared in an online forum.

The author of the thread claimed to have discovered the information saved on a memory stick that they had found on a public bus.

According to the information posted online, the doctors had received cash, telephone cards, shopping cards, digital cameras and other items in return for prescribing specific drugs.

So far, all the doctors listed in the exposed file have denied receiving bribes. The related hospitals also claim that they have long prohibited doctors from accepting kickbacks.

An official from the Ministry of Health told a reporter with the People's Daily that doctors who receive such kickbacks will be criticized, denied from promotion or even dismissed from their positions depending on the amount they have accepted.

Doctors who receive huge amounts of kickbacks will have their licenses suspended or even revoked.

As for those drug companies that offered payments, their actions will be recorded and they will be prohibited from attending any provincial-level medicine auctions for two years. Local hospitals will also be prohibited from purchasing medicines from any pharmaceutical company that has been black listed for engaging in such activity.

Currently the Zhejiang and Hangzhou health bureaus are conducting investigations into the case.

However, as all of the six hospitals implicated are directly under the control of the Hangzhou Health Bureau, some doubt whether the investigation can be impartial.

UPDATE: