Hospital scalpers a blight on society
Mobile apps also now allow people to book appointments directly using an automated system, in an effort to remove middlemen from the equation.
In mid-2016, Beijing’s public security authority urged public hospitals to upgrade their security camera systems and pledged to respond to any complaints about scalpers, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Since then, there have been several reported cases, including one in October in which police detained 54 scalpers accused of manipulating online booking systems after a two-month investigation at five hospitals, including Peking University Third Hospital.
Thirty-seven received administrative detentions, an extrajudicial punishment that can last up to 15 days, while the others were still awaiting criminal prosecution, the authorities said.
Yet outside the capital, problems persist.
In April, nurse Luo Fuyu at the Nanjing Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital became an online celebrity after a viral video showed her confronting a female scalper.
Zheng Mingfei, the hospital’s security director, said afterward, however, that administrators have no effective way to penalize scalpers. All they can do is ask them to write a letter promising to stay away.
“There’s no law to which we can refer to punish them,” he said, adding that if the hospital calls the police, the scalper is usually simply told to repay the money to the scammed patients.
“Hospitals that collaborate with scalpers must be punished, and we need regulations and laws to severely punish them. That’s the only way to rid hospitals of scalpers,” he added.
His comments echoed a China Daily editorial a month earlier that complained few people had received severe penalties, and that it was an “open secret” that some hospital employees helped the scalpers.
“They are … the root cause of the chronic disease,” the editorial said, calling for “zero tolerance” toward such activities.
As with any tricky disease, the treatment will only be truly effective if it attacks the root cause, not just the symptoms.