Donated medicine goes to waste
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The discovery of donated medical supplies that had gone to waste has prompted a call for strengthened supervision of donations.
The donated medical supplies, including drugs, were found expired in northern Beijing's Xiaotangshan Hospital, which had been designated to treat SARS patients in 2003 when the donated medical supplies arrived, China Economic Weekly reported yesterday.
"It's a great pity the medicines neither played a role during the SARS outbreak, nor were used afterward. It caused a lot of unnecessary waste and loss," an anonymous official with Beijing Charity Association was quoted as saying.
After the May 12 earthquake and the Beijing Olympics, the country received about 107 billion yuan ($16 billion) worth of donations last year, 3.5 times more than in 2007, according to the blue book of philanthropy released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
But due to a lack of specific laws stipulating the management and use of donated materials, some enterprises donated expired disaster relief materials or materials that were not in urgent need, the report said.
"Authorities should improve present laws on donated materials management," Deng Guosheng, associate professor with school of public policy and management under Tsinghua University, told China Daily yesterday.
For instance, spot-checking should be conducted during the process of donation and distribution. Information disclosure for aid recipients should be promoted and third party assessment should be encouraged, he said.
"The waste of donated materials has possibly become a universal problem in the countryside, where people haven't paid enough attention and know little about donated materials. So, materials donations are likely to be wasted or used inefficiently," he said.
The country is expected to have its first charity law within one or two years, Wang Zhenyao, director of the social welfare and charity promotion department under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said recently.
The draft charity law has been included in this year's legislative agenda of the National People's Congress Standing Committee.
The management of donated money has also been recently questioned, as large amounts of donated money received by organizations were later handed in to local finance departments.
In August it was reported that of the 76-billion-yuan earthquake relief fund collected through donations, 80 percent may have gone into the government's financial accounts, becoming "extra income" for the government, according to an investigation headed by Deng Guosheng.
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