An elderly man in Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, returned home from the hospital on his deathbed. The journey was 3 kilometers, about a 10-minute drive, and the “ambulance” service charged 1800 yuan (RMB). This news made it to the top trending searches on Baidu on June 4th.
According to a report from China Youth Net on June 3, Zhang Li’s grandfather in Zhanjiang City had been hospitalized for two months since August 2024 due to various elderly diseases such as heart disease, tumors, and organ failure, and he was now nearing the end of his life. He was unconscious, relying on oxygen to maintain faint breathing and heartbeat. The doctors deemed further treatment futile, so the family decided to take him home for palliative care.
Zhang Li expressed his frustration: “The hospital didn’t arrange for an ambulance, so we had to resort to finding an ‘unofficial ambulance’. In such a critical situation, ordinary people have no choice but to be at the mercy of others.”
The family of Zhang Li had to contact a privately operated “ambulance” recommended by a doctor. From the outside, this “ambulance” looked almost identical to a regular one, with three personnel inside – a driver, one person in a white coat, and another in casual clothes. The vehicle only had a mobile bed and an oxygen bag, without any other medical facilities or drugs.
Furthermore, the exorbitant charges of this ambulance service were shocking. For a 3-kilometer journey, about a 10-minute ride, the “ambulance” charged 1800 yuan.
Instances of these illegal ambulances taking advantage of patients have been reported in various parts of China.
In February of this year, Wang Li from Linfen, Shanxi, had to transport her father home as he was diagnosed with cancer and was no longer eligible for surgery. A doctor in Beijing suggested sending him back home. She urgently arranged for an ambulance transfer, specifying the need for a ventilator, oxygen concentrator, and infusion pump on board, and after negotiation, the price set was 8 yuan per kilometer.
Wang Li said, “We didn’t inquire specifically about any other additional charges at that time. But when the ambulance arrived, they charged 300 yuan for a worn-out blanket; on the way, when my father had a fever, they charged 300 yuan for using 6 ice packs; suctioning costs 60 yuan per time; breakfast fee 100 yuan; monitoring fees and oxygen charges along the way were charged separately.” In the end, covering the 800-kilometer distance from Beijing to Shanxi cost Wang Li a total of 8400 yuan. She added, “We were in a hurry at that time and didn’t carefully check the expenses, only realizing later that we had been scammed.”