by Xinhua writers Bai Xu, Yang Dingdu, Shen Chong

    WUHAN, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) - Wang Zhengyan became a celebrity recently after a "best doctors" poll from local people. She has been a doctor for 26 years.

    "She is loved by patients because she always prescribes medicines people can afford," said Zhang Yingtian, chairman of the Medical Doctors Association of Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

    Dubbed the "penicillin doctor" or "cheap-medicine doctor", the 55-year-old Wang works at the Jinqiao community health service center of the Hankou Hospital in Wuhan. She has cured numerous patients.

    The average value of her prescriptions was about 55 yuan (about8 U.S. dollars) in 2008 and 2009, compared to the health care insurance quota of retired workers in Wuhan which was 80 yuan (about 11.8 U.S. dollars).

    Lan Wenying went to hospital to cure her dermatophytosis last October. Allergic to the medicine, her face skin became scaly and festered.

    In the following two months, Lan spent the health care insurance money she had saved for two years.

    "But the 2,000 yuan was not enough to cure the illness," said the retired worker, whose retirement pension was 1,000 yuan per month.

    Each time in hospital, doctors gave her expensive medicines. Once she told a doctor that she was allergic to a drug, but the drug was still prescribed to her.

    Taking others' advice, Lan went to see doctor Wang on December 29.

    "She was extremely patient, asking lots of questions," Lan recalled. The diagnosis took her 15 minutes, after which Wang was prescribed some medicine.

    Lan's experience was shared by many other patients.

    "In the big hospitals maybe you can have your illness cured, but before that you must take the drugs the doctors' prescribe," said 63-year-old retired worker Wang Yucheng.

    "And each prescription might cost 600 or 800 yuan. This is a heavy financial burden for us ordinary people," he said, adding that he would buy medicine himself if the illness was not too severe.

    Stories about Wang Zhengyan's good practise has renewed people's criticism over high medical charges.

    "We praise doctor Wang. It is sad that such doctors are so rare," said Wu Hangmin a columnist for the local tabloid Changjiang Times.

    Chinese people have been complaining about high drug prices for a long time.

    In China, due to longstanding low government funding for state-run hospitals, which in many places only covers 10 percent of operating costs, doctors often aggressively prescribe expensive, sometimes unnecessary medicines and treatment, so to make profits for their hospital.

    While the disposable income of China's urban and rural residents grew close to 20 times during the last two decades, average medical costs increased more than 130 times in the same period

    In last August, China's Health Ministry issued a list of 307 essential drugs as part of its plan to create an essential medicine system to ensure people's access to necessary drugs and cut medical costs.

    But some experts wonder if the proposed system would stop drug prices from rising.

    Hu Weimin, a doctor with the Central Hospital of Loudi city in Hunan, is part of the vanguard against medical corruption.

    Hu recently revealed that in many hospitals pharmacists served as "representatives of drug companies", and doctors were given "commission" at the end of the month according to the amount of certain brand drugs they prescribed.

    "Believe it or not, they could get as much as 2,000 yuan some days, while a doctor's salary here was about 3,000 yuan per month," Hu said.

    A survey by the Chinese Medical Doctors Association last April showed that more than 90 percent of doctors polled believed their income was too low.

    Wang Zhengyan's monthly income was 2,300 yuan. She lived with her husband and son in a small apartment of less than 50 square meters.

    "We shouldn't leave good doctors like Wang Zhengyan in poverty," stated an Guangzhou Daily editorial.

    The view was echoed by Dai Tao, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

    "Doctors should be properly subsidized," he said. "Otherwise, they would seek returns in other ways, like selling expensive drugs."

    Hu Weimin noted that subsidies could be linked with doctors' achievements so as to encourage them to really regard patients' health as top priority." For example, a community doctor could be paid according to the general health condition of the people in the community he was in charge."

    On the other hand, Hu suggested that a monitoring system be setup so as to prevent doctors from prescribing expensive drugs for profit.

    "Medical authorities should take responsibility," he said.