11-12-2019, 06:17 AM
A City Hospital Is Asking Nurses for Loans... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/busin...itals.html
Ruzhou, a city of one million people in central China, urgently needed a new hospital, their bosses said. To pay for it, the administrators were asking health care workers for loans. If employees didnâ€t have the money, they were pointed to banks where they could borrow it and then turn it over to the hospital.
Chinaâ€s doctors and nurses are paid a small fraction of what medical professionals make in the United States. On message boards online and in the local media, many complained that they felt pressured to pony up thousands of dollars they could not afford to give.
Ruzhou is a city with a borrowing problem — and an emblem of the trillions of dollars in debt threatening the Chinese economy.
Local governments borrowed for years to create jobs and keep factories humming. Now Chinaâ€s economy is slowing to its weakest pace in nearly three decades, but Beijing has kept the lending spigots tight to quell its debt problems. Increasingly these deals are going sour, as they did in Ruzhou, and the loans are going unpaid. Lenders have accused three of Ruzhouâ€s hospitals and three investment funds tied to the city of not paying back their debts.
Local officials have long used big spending to keep the economy growing. Ruzhou is home to a number of white-elephant projects, including a stadium and sports complex turned e-commerce center, now largely unused. A shantytown redevelopment project, begun four years ago to give rural residents new homes, has been slowed for lack of money, locals said.
Doctors and nurses at the traditional Chinese medicine hospital complained to one local state-owned newspaper that they were being ordered to give between $14,000 and $28,000. At Ruzhou Maternal and Child Health Hospital, nurses and doctors were told they had to invest between $8,500 and $14,000, according to government online forums and state media.
more >>> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/busin...itals.html
Ruzhou, a city of one million people in central China, urgently needed a new hospital, their bosses said. To pay for it, the administrators were asking health care workers for loans. If employees didnâ€t have the money, they were pointed to banks where they could borrow it and then turn it over to the hospital.
Chinaâ€s doctors and nurses are paid a small fraction of what medical professionals make in the United States. On message boards online and in the local media, many complained that they felt pressured to pony up thousands of dollars they could not afford to give.
Ruzhou is a city with a borrowing problem — and an emblem of the trillions of dollars in debt threatening the Chinese economy.
Local governments borrowed for years to create jobs and keep factories humming. Now Chinaâ€s economy is slowing to its weakest pace in nearly three decades, but Beijing has kept the lending spigots tight to quell its debt problems. Increasingly these deals are going sour, as they did in Ruzhou, and the loans are going unpaid. Lenders have accused three of Ruzhouâ€s hospitals and three investment funds tied to the city of not paying back their debts.
Local officials have long used big spending to keep the economy growing. Ruzhou is home to a number of white-elephant projects, including a stadium and sports complex turned e-commerce center, now largely unused. A shantytown redevelopment project, begun four years ago to give rural residents new homes, has been slowed for lack of money, locals said.
Doctors and nurses at the traditional Chinese medicine hospital complained to one local state-owned newspaper that they were being ordered to give between $14,000 and $28,000. At Ruzhou Maternal and Child Health Hospital, nurses and doctors were told they had to invest between $8,500 and $14,000, according to government online forums and state media.
more >>> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/busin...itals.html