Representatives of the disciplinary watchdog conduct an inspection of drug procurement, sales, and use at a hospital in Luliang county, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, on August 7, 2023. Photos: VCG

China's top anti-corruption watchdog has stepped up its anti-corruption efforts in the medical and pharmaceutical industry with the release of a public education animation on anti-corruption efforts in the industry. 

The release of the short film comes as market watchdogs in multiple places have joined in the nationwide campaign to crack down on corruption in the industry.

In the short film released by the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), pharmaceutical salespersons offer rebates to medical personnel based on the number of drugs prescribed by doctors, while some Party members and officials take advantage of their positions to illegally collect and sell prescription data and accept illegal benefits from pharmaceutical salespersons.  

The CCDI warns that such behavior will eventually face serious investigation and punishment and urges local discipline inspection and supervision organs to strengthen the daily supervision of personnel in key positions to ensure their proper conduct.

Recently, the market supervision bureaus in localities including Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Nanchang in East China's Jiangxi Province and Datong in North China's Shanxi Province have recently started to solicit tip-offs on bribery in the pharmaceutical industry.

These tips include people giving kickbacks to medical practitioners in the form of consulting fees, lecture fees, promotion fees, the illegal act of transferring benefits in the name of academic conferences and benefits in other non-monetary forms such as domestic and overseas travel.

Fighting against corruption is a comprehensive process which requires the coordination of multiple supervision and regulation departments to address both the symptoms and the root causes of the problem, a Beijing-based anti-corruption expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Sunday.

Together with other nine departments, the National Health Commission (NHC) has launched a one-year campaign to crack down on corruption in the healthcare sector across the country to ensure high-quality development of the medical and healthcare sector, the NHC announced on Tuesday.

Since China started the anti-corruption drive in the public health sector in mid-July, at least 184 Party chiefs or heads of hospitals had been put under investigation as of Thursday, according to media estimates.

These officials in the healthcare sector come from 24 provinces and regions with the most personnel in question from South China's Guangdong Province, Southwest China's Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, according to chinanews.com.cn.

Also, 53 among the 184 come from the third-tier (top level) hospitals.

The anonymous expert stressed that the investigation of the officials in the healthcare sector shows the Party's resolution to combat graft since high officials shoulder the core responsibility to prevent corruption as well as the Party's strict attitude toward solving this issue related to people's livelihood.