Beijing - Wei Feiyan, deputy to the National People's Congress from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and chairman of the Huahong Pharmaceutical Corp, says that encouraging the use of Chinese medicine should be adopted as a national strategy.

Chinese medicine is relatively cheap and convenient, so it should be advocated for small or chronic diseases, while Western medicine can be used for severe or acute disease. This would cut medical expenditures, too.

Wei disagrees that medical service is expensive and difficult to access in China. "It is not hard for the Chinese to receive medical care," she said. She believes the problem has been exaggerated and claims that most patients can receive medical treatment on the day they go to the hospital, even quicker than patients in some developed countries.

She believes high medicine prices are partly caused in the intermediate channels. Hence, the State must strengthen its inspection of medicine wholesalers and retailers, especially the VAT invoices of medicines.

Reform in the health care system has been a controversial issue in China. Prohibiting hospitals from selling medicine will not resolve the problem of high medicine prices, she said.

Some doctors prescribe excessive medicines to patients because they receive kickbacks from the pharmaceutical producers. Hence, there must be more monitoring of doctors. The performance of doctors should be evaluated by the hospitals and patients, and linked with their rankings and incomes.

Another way to curb health care corruption is to raise qualifications for doctors. Many doctors are incompetent or unqualified in terms of skills and professional ethics . Qualified doctors should get higher pay, too, she says.