BEIJING, Aug. 30 -- The average medical fee for each outpatient in the first half of the year was 134.5 yuan (US$16.6), 5 percent more than last year, Shenzhen's health bureau said.

    The averaged daily medical fee for each hospitalized patient was 645.9 yuan, about 5 percent more than the same period last year.

    Among the outpatient medical fee, 58.6 yuan was paid as medicine fees, about 6 percent higher year on year. The rest of the money mainly went to checkup and registration fee. Medicine income in all Shenzhen hospitals accounted for 37 percent of hospitals' total income, about 0.1 percent less than the same period last year.

    Patients paid 5,361.5 yuan on average for each stay in hospital, 2.3 percent higher than the same period last year. About 1,517 yuan was paid as medicine fee, less than 30 percent of the total amount, about 3.7 percent lower.

    The three city-level comprehensive hospitals ---- Shenzhen People's Hospital, Shenzhen Second People's Hospital and Beijing University Shenzhen Hospital --- and some specialty hospitals charged about twice as much as street-level hospitals for outpatient service and three times as much for hospitalization fees.

    The Shenzhen People's Hospital charged the most for normal delivery, about 3,480 yuan compared to an average of 2,630 yuan. The Shenzhen traditional Chinese medicine hospital charged the most for a Caesarean operation billing patients 7,104 yuan, opposed to an average of 5,164 yuan. Shenzhen occupational disease prevention hospital charged more than 6,000 yuan to treat pneumonia, as opposed to an average of 2,250. Shenzhen Children's Hospital charged over 6,370 yuan for an appendicitis operation nearly twice the average bill of 3,325 yuan.

    The health bureau explained it as coinciding with the seriousness of diseases that patients consulted for in different hospitals.

    
(Source: Shenzhen Daily)