Trustee councils set up at Beijing hospitals

A council of trustees has been established in two public hospitals in Beijing as part of an ongoing medical institution reform in the municipality.

The now-former presidents of two public hospitals - Chaoyang Hospital and Friendship Hospital - surrendered their power to decide major issues to their respective councils, which were created in July.

The city's hospital management bureau appointed council members, and then the councils hired their own hospital presidents.

The members of the councils consist of the new president and other staff workers of the hospital, including representation from the labor union, and people from outside the hospitals, such as experts on hospital management, lawyers and representatives of neighboring communities.

Feng Guosheng and Liu Jian, who were presidents of the Chaoyang and Friendship hospitals respectively before the reform, were appointed heads of their hospitals' councils.

Council members don't get paid.

The bureau is also working to select a board of supervisors for each hospital.

These organizations will help balance the powers of decision-making, enforcement and supervision within the hospital, Fang Laiying, director of the bureau, said on Wednesday.

"The council, the president, and the board of supervisors each have clear duties of their own, so the hospitals can get free from the previous mismanagement and inefficiency caused by unclear or overlapping responsibilities," he said. "Meanwhile, the three branches of power are bonded and restricting each other."

Wu Ming, assistant director of the Peking University Health Science Center, said that in China, a public hospital's president usually has the biggest say in making important decisions, which often leads to the president tending to place the hospital's interests over the public's.

"The public hopes that public hospitals provide quality service at a reasonable price, but they can barely decide the direction of development," she said.

Also, the government's methods of managing public hospitals need to be reviewed, she added.

"The government intervenes too much in the operation of public hospitals, such as employment, so hospitals don't have enough power to hire or sack people as they want," Wu said.

It is natural for the president of the public hospital to consider the interests of the hospital, but a system to check their power is needed, Wu said.

The council of trustees should solve the problem by taking over the decision-making powers on major issues such as large investments and annual plans. It will also assess the president's performance to decide his or her salary and whether to prolong his or her contract.

What's more, inviting people outside the hospital to the council helps ensure that the public hospital pays more attention to public interests.

Xing Pingfang, a member of the council of trustees of Chaoyang Hospital, and also the head of Hujialou community committee in Chaoyang, said he suggested the council increase treatment rooms in order to save the time that patients spend waiting, and the council decided to build another room after discussing his suggestion.

Feng, the former Chaoyang Hospital president, said his role in the hospital has greatly changed.

"Now I not only represent the hospital, I also represent the government. It is my most important duty to enforce the policies of the government.

"As the council head, I also need to listen to different voices, so as to not only satisfy the public's demands, but also ensure the reasonable and sustainable development of the hospital."

Liu, of Friendship Hospital, also applauded the new role.

"Compared to the past when I need to make decisions for the hospital and also enforce them as a president, now I have more time to consider the strategic decisions of the hospital," Liu said.