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China's administrative departments of health, business and cyberspace have launched a joint nationwide campaign to solve the issue of over-exaggerated online promotion of certain hospitals or medical treatments.
The death of a college student in Shaanxi province, Northwest China, on April 13 stirred wide debate about the responsibility of search engines, hospital outsourcing and the watchdogs. The student went to a subcontracted department of a public hospital in Beijing for an experimental treatment, which he had found on Baidu, China's largest search engine, to treat his cancer.
The affiliated center at the armed police hospital was subcontracted to people employed by an investment company funded by investors from Putian, Fujian province in Southeast China, the hometown of a large number of private hospital owners. It turns out the Putian businesspeople pay Baidu huge amounts of money every year to promote their hospitals in its search results, while the latter did not closely examine the clinics' true qualifications and medical care capabilities. Baidu's paid listing system ranks hospitals according to their amount of advertising they pay for.
The authorities are expected to track down on illegal online hospital promotions according to the clues on the internet and investigate the problematic hospitals.
The' names of the hospitals found to have engaged in such practices will be exposed and registered in the social credit system. The people subcontracting public hospitals' departments in violation of regulations will be held accountable for the losses they incur according to law.
