Li Yuchen | Xiangyang, Hubei: Let some people go crazy first

By Li Yuchen

Psychiatric hospitals in Xiangyang are as ubiquitous as beef noodle shops.
This city has over 20 psychiatric hospitals. This density is far ahead of the rest of the country.
On February 3, a reporter from the Beijing News, Han Futao, published an undercover investigation. He infiltrated several psychiatric hospitals in Xiangyang and Yichang, Hubei, as a nursing assistant, and discovered a complete insurance fraud chain: sending normal people to psychiatric hospitals, fabricating medical records, forging diagnoses and treatments, and defrauding medical insurance funds.
Han Futao is the same reporter who previously exposed the mixing of edible oil in tanker trucks. Last time he targeted edible oil, this time it was psychiatric hospitals.
In Xiangyang, it’s easy to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
All you need is an ID card. The hospital will send a car to pick you up for free and promises free hospitalization and free physical examinations. The targets are mostly elderly people in rural areas, low-income families, and those living alone without care—those who no one cares about.
According to reports, behind the “free hospitalization” is a shrewd calculation: defrauding 50,000 yuan per person per year. The patient doesn’t pay a penny, and the hospital makes a fortune.
The only cost of this business is conscience.
In order to expand “production capacity”, some hospitals don’t even spare their own employees. Nursing assistants and security guards go through the hospitalization procedures and become “psychiatric patients”. They work in the hospital during the day and lie on the medical records at night.
False diagnosis, false treatment, false discharge—all three falsehoods are complete, and it’s an assembly line operation.
It’s easy to get in, but hard to get out.
The reporter witnessed nursing assistants slapping patients, kicking people, and even whipping them with water pipes during the undercover investigation. Some patients were tied to the bed for several days because they talked back.
What’s even more suffocating is that some patients repeatedly requested to be discharged, but were all rejected. In the end, he chose to commit suicide.
In a psychiatric hospital, “saying you’re not sick” is itself a symptom of the illness. If the doctor says you’re sick, then you’re sick. Want to prove you’re normal? Sorry, this just shows that you haven’t been cured yet.
This is a perfect predicament. Being sober is a crime here.
Behind these psychiatric hospitals stands a billionaire worth tens of billions.
The Xiangyang Hengtaikang Hospital, which was named by the Beijing News, is suspected to be actually controlled by Chen Bang, the chairman of Aier Eye Hospital.
Aier Eye Hospital, China’s largest private ophthalmology chain group, has a market value of tens of billions. Chen Bang himself has been on the rich list many times and is a veritable “eye king”.
Why does the eye king want to open a psychiatric hospital?
The answer may be hidden in a survey by the Qingliu Studio: Chen Bang controls not just one psychiatric hospital, but at least 7. These 7 hospitals all have records of insurance fraud.
It’s not a mistake, it’s a habitual offender.
After the incident, Chen Bang quickly issued a statement: he is only “one of the investors” and has “no decision-making power and no management power” over the hospital, and “firmly supports a thorough investigation”.
This set of rhetoric is very familiar. Every big shot who gets into trouble says the same thing. I invested the money, but I don’t care about the business; I’m a shareholder, but I don’t know anything.
The capital market is honest. On February 6, Aier Eye Hospital’s stock price fell by 3%.
On February 4, Hubei Province established a joint investigation team and rushed to Xiangyang and Yichang. The official statement: once verified, it will be dealt with seriously according to discipline and law.
But the question is, how long have these psychiatric hospitals existed? With more than 20 hospitals defrauding insurance at the same time, what have the local medical insurance bureau and the health commission been doing?
Some people say that psychiatric hospitals are the easiest departments to defraud insurance. Because the diagnostic criteria for mental illness are vague, lacking objective biochemical indicators, and entirely based on the subjective judgment of the doctor. Whether a person has a mental illness depends to a large extent on whether the doctor wants them to be sick.
This gray area has become a paradise for rent-seeking.
When a city has more psychiatric hospitals than hot pot restaurants, perhaps it’s not the people inside who need to see a doctor.
After Han Futao’s report was published, it topped the trending searches.
Some people lamented: There are fewer and fewer investigative reporters these days. Han Futao previously exposed tanker trucks, and this time he exposed psychiatric hospitals, each time risking his life.
Some people’s job is to turn normal people into psychiatric patients. Some people’s job is to bring the truth out of the asylum.
On this land, there are not many of the latter.
Hubei Xiangyang, let some people go crazy first. The first to go crazy drives the later ones, and finally achieves common prosperity—the common prosperity of the hospitals.