A Sky-High RMB 700,000 “Flying Knife” Surgery

In response to the phenomenon of patients paying RMB 700,000 to commission Dr. Bertalanffy and his team to perform brain tumor surgery, Prof. QIN Zhiyong, Vice President of the Hongqiao Campus of Huashan Hospital Affiliated with Fudan University and a well-known neurosurgeon, has publicly expressed his professional views.

1. According to publicly available information such as Wikipedia, Dr. Bertalanffy was born on April 5, 1954 in Timișoara, Romania. He is not German. He is now 72 years old.

2. The German Society of Neurosurgery, rather than the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies, is the most authoritative professional organization for neurosurgery in Germany. Dr. Bertalanffy has never served as President of the German Society of Neurosurgery. Therefore, he is not regarded as one of Germany’s leading figures in the field.

3. In Germany, Dr. Bertalanffy is simply an ordinary neurosurgeon. Germany operates under a three-tier healthcare system, in which highly complex surgical procedures must be performed at university hospitals, as required by the country’s healthcare system. Germany’s most renowned neurosurgeons include Prof. Florian Ringel of LMU University hospital Munich, Prof. Peter Vajkoczy of Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Prof. Veit Rohde of the University Medical Center Göttingen, Prof. Sandro Krieg of Heidelberg University Hospital, and Prof. Hans Clusmann of RWTH Aachen University Hospital.

4. The statutory retirement age for physicians at German university hospitals and public hospitals is 67. It may be extended by up to two years, but after the age of 69, surgeons are no longer permitted to serve as the primary operating surgeon.

5. In China, only hospitals or medical institutions holding a valid Practice License of Medical Institution are legally qualified to provide medical services, perform surgical procedures, and charge patients for such services. If an intermediary company in Shanghai publicly charges patients at least RMB 700,000 per surgery, this would constitute a serious violation of the law.

6. Dr. Bertalanffy works at the International Neuroscience Institute (INI) in Hanover, Germany. It is not a German university hospital or a large public hospital, but a private neurosurgical hospital serving international and self-paying patients. It was established with investment from Siemens, but has experienced operational difficulties and treats a relatively small number of patients.

7. A surgical fee of RMB 700,000 per surgery is an extraordinarily high price. They take advantage of patients’ information asymmetry, their desire to survive, and parents’ desperate wish to save their children, leading patients to pay premiums many times higher than the actual cost. They even expect patients to be grateful to them. What kind of medical practice is this? It is simply a group of people using a so-called business model to extract an enormous amount of money from patients who are already in desperate circumstances.

8. Many patients have contacted us through Xiaohongshu, hoping that our German specialists could also treat them when visiting China. We have declined every such request. To date, our company has not arranged medical treatment for a single patient. The reason is straightforward: if we were to help patients seek treatment from German specialists, we would have to charge patients for that service, which would constitute a serious violation of the law. Under Chinese law, only licensed medical institutions are permitted to charge patients for medical services. Neither individuals nor companies may do so. When our international visiting professors work at Chinese Class III Grade A hospitals, patients receive treatment directly at those hospitals. All surgical fees are paid by patients to the Chinese hospital, and all charges are strictly determined in accordance with the national medical insurance fee schedule.

9. The essence of medicine is kindness, compassion, and helping others. When patients seek medical care, they place their trust and hope in physicians. They deserve to be treated fairly, impartially, and reasonably.