Chinese medicine clinics will use patients as guinea pigs: lawmakers

President of the Hong Kong Society of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners Yung Chiu-wing said the charge was at least 20 per cent higher than private practitioners for treating common, minor ailments such as flu or coughs.

The fee is also almost triple that at public outpatient clinics for Western medicine, which charge $44 a visit, including drugs.

But Mr Yiu claimed the purpose of the public clinics was to develop scientific studies in Chinese medicine through clinical experience, rather than providing heavily subsidised Chinese medicine services on a large scale in the public sector.

Democratic legislator Andrew Cheng Kar-foo accused the government of charging too much for treatments while using patients as guinea pigs.

'Bear in mind that most patrons of Chinese medicine are people from the grassroots or elderly people who can only afford low medical costs,' he said.

'While the patients will be treated as the subject of scientific research at the public clinics, they will also face high medical fees. I do not see how the government can be justified in charging $120.'

Cyd Ho Sau-lan, of The Frontier, shared this view, saying it was unfair to pass the cost of expensive research on to patients.

Ms Ho also said that the high fees might encourage private practitioners to increase their charges.

'The private practitioners may see the $120 set by the government as a benchmark. The government is now taking a lead in raising the medical costs of Chinese medicine,' she said.

'However, our original objective was to develop Chinese medicine into an affordable alternative to Western medicine.'

But Mr Yiu insisted the fee was reasonable as it had been brought down from $190 by a government subsidy.

'If we set the fee at too low a level, it would lead to a big demand for expanding Chinese medicine services in the public sector,' he said.

'However, it is not our objective to widely expand Chinese medicine to make it a heavily subsidised service which would eat up the market share of the private sector.'

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