China to regulate health professionals' conduct

BEIJING - China's National Health and Family Planning Commission Tuesday issued a draft regulation on health workers' professional conduct.

Health workers who fail to abide by the norm will be punished. Malpractices include accepting "red envelopes" of cash from patients and kickbacks from medical equipment companies and pharmaceutical companies.

The draft was released to solicit public opinion and mainly targets clinicians, disease prevention and control, health care education, maternal and children care, family planning, mental health and hematology.

Those who fail to meet the standards will be warned, recorded, downgraded and eventually removed from their posts.