China's Ministry of Health (MOH) has ordered all hospitals to provide prompt treatment to traffic victims independent of their capacity to pay.

"People injured in traffic accidents must be attended to promptly and treatment should not be related to the capacity to pay medical bills," the ministry said in a circular issued recently.

In a bid to take the heat out of public complaints about hospitals being too profit-oriented, China's health authorities have repeatedly warned hospitals not to turn away patients over payment difficulties.

But hospitals have retorted that unpaid medical bills are creating serious financial difficulties for them.

Under China's existing medical system, hospitals are required to balance revenues and expenditure by themselves with limited government financial support.

"The highest single unpaid bill in my hospital is about 120,000 yuan (US$16,000)," said Beijing Haidian Hospital official Li Bing. "Every year we are left with more than a million yuan of unpaid medical bills."

A survey carried out by the "Clove Garden" professional medical website found that only 6 percent of 1,341 doctors who responded supported the ministry's decision in favor of unconditional treatment and 18 percent clearly opposed it.

The other 76 percent were reluctantly toeing the line but were anxious to see if the government would work out compensatory policies to pay bills not honored by patients.

The ministry didn't say in the circular what punishment hospitals will face if they refuse to provide emergency treatment to traffic victims, neither did it say what compensation hospitals will be granted for unpaid medical fees.

Lack of safety awareness, flagrant violations of traffic rules and poor road etiquette cause hundreds of thousands of traffic accidents in China each year.

Statistics from the Ministries of Health and Public Security show traffic accidents have killed about 100,000 people and injured 400,000 each year on average for the last seven years in China.

(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2007)