The 1st "Hospital Risk Fund" in China was set in Changzheng Hospital recently. Composed of the contributions by all medical workers plus the account by the hospital, the fund was established to pay for all risks occurring in the hospital's medical services.
The amount of this "Risk Fund" equals to 120% of yearly average payment by Cheangzheng Hospital in the last 3 years, in which 50% is paid by the hospital; 10% comes from the profit reservation from the application of new techniques and new treatments, or from the top-sized and top-complicated surgeries; and the rest 40% are contributed by the medical workers on year basis. They contribute RMB200 to RMB500 a year individually based on the risks of their positions. The procedures are as follows: Once a doctor incurs the medical accident completely due to his "fault", the hospital will punish him according to the consequence. The punishment fine, RMB20K at maximal, shall be added into the "Risk Fund". At the same time, the fault-maker shall double his contribution to the fund next year. In the case of medical accidents caused by those lack of sense of responsibility, the accident-makers shall be routinely punished according to the state laws.
Prof. Miao Xiaohui, Vice President of Changzheng Hospital is the founder of the risk fund. He told the journalists because many auxiliaries were still underway after the implementation of new-version state "Provisions of Medical Accident Handling", the hospital had to pay the majority of medical accident compensation, but the related units and accident-makers received only slight punishment. What they paid was much less than the actual compensation, so the medical workers were not effectively touched. The hospital thought of increasing the compensation ratio by the accident-maker, but the accident-makers could afford quite limited amount, and the medical workers may get nervous in big or complicated surgeries. Therefore the fund was set to try a proper system of compensation sharing. Of course, the best way is to provide the medical worker individual responsibility insurance as soon as possible.
The journalist was told that the medical workers were willing to buy insurance in the commercial insurance companies in many countries, so that the insurance companies could have presence in the whole process of settling medical responsibility discrepancy. The "Hospital Risk Fund" of Changzheng Hospital is just an alternative trial as no related insurance is available at present.