Complied by Caijing Staff

From Caijng Online

On December 10, after a four month trial, a final sentence was issued on the Qiqihar fake medicine case. The final sentence adhered for the most part to the first sentence except for the correction of a written mistake.

After the investigation it was proved that the chief offender, Wang Guiping, sold diethylene glycol, a toxic industrial chemical, instead of propylene glycol to QSMF. QSMF took delivery of the chemical and did not carry out any checks before using it to manufacture the medicine. Furthermore, QSMF quality testers issued invalid quality reports. On April 19, the hospital began using the medicine.

Ren Zhenchao and 10 victims sued the hospital in August 2007 for 20 million yuan. On June 26 of 2008, the first sentence was announced by the court in the Tianhe district court of Guangzhou. The hospital was found to be responsible for using fake medicine. QSMF, the pharmaceutical trader Guangzhou Jinhengyuan Medicine Trade Company (GJMT) and the Guangdong Medicines & Health Products Import and Export Company (GMHPIE) were all held responsible for compensating the victims. Compensation per victim varied between 350 thousand to 700 thousand yuan. Total compensation was 3.5 million yuan.

Both the hospital and GMHPIE refused to accept the first sentence. One plaintiff also appealed because of a mistake made when stating the cost of the medicines, which should have been 48,371.50 yuan rather than 28,173.40 yuan. The case was brought to trial a second time at the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court on August 26 of 2008. The hospital's lawyer claimed that many mistakes had been made in the trial, including that the case was originally defined as a personal injury claim and later changed to a medical injury claim. The lawyer also alleged that the court did not distinguish sufficiently between hospital and pharmaceutical traders. The hospital also thought that the settlement amount as defined by the court was too vague, without being based on the actual causes of death. GMHPIE also believed that it was not possible to declare four defendants jointly guilty.

Regarding the hospital's role in the case, the court stated that as the hospital had made a 28 percent profit on the medicine, it was acting more like a pharmaceutical trading company, rather than a not-for-profit hospital. Furthermore, the court refused to consider that a timely report produced by the hospital was sufficient to waive its responsibility.

Under the sentence, the defendants were responsible for negotiating how much of the compensation each would pay. The hospital’s representative, Cai Yanmin, stated that it was unfair to find the hospital liable, as they were not aware of any issues with the medicine. However, Ren Zhenchao's lawyer told Caijing staff: “if the hospital is not responsible for this, does it mean that the hospital can sell dangerous medicine to patients as much as they want, without taking any responsibility?”