Hangzhou Weng's mother-in-law is 84 years old.She usually lives alone.Recently,my mother-in-law went to a health class organized by a health care product company.After class,the company gave each old man a"welfare"and wore a dynamic ECG monitor for free,which can monitor his heartbeat for 24 hours.After completing the free ECG,the old man was so frightened that he called Ms.Weng to"explain the future".
The staff of the company involved compared the ECG and thought that the old man's heartbeat was too fast and should be treated quickly,otherwise there would be sequelae,and judged that the old man died at night,because"the heartbeat was 30 and 36 at night and 120 at daytime,which would lead to cerebral infarction".This remark is a pure piece of nonsense,indicating that the staff member has no medical background.However,although the staff speak layman's words,they can also scare the elderly and achieve the purpose of promoting health products.
For the elderly's health care product marketing,medical means have played a vital role.Without this key link,it is difficult to stimulate the elderly's psychology of"fear of disease"and"fear of death".However,whether it is 24-hour ECG monitoring or ECG interpretation,it is a strong professional medical activity.Non professional doctors are not allowed to look at the picture for diagnosis at will.It can be seen that this health care product company uses dynamic ECG monitor for inspection,and then the staff interprets the inspection results.It is not engaged in difficult medical activities,but uses medical means to market health care products.
In fact,do ECG,measure blood pressure,blood calcium,blood glucose,and even tumor markers,and diagnose the elderly according to the examination results.These medical activities generally exist in health classes for the elderly,health product promotion sites,communities where the elderly live together,etc.Many old people have similar experiences with this old man.Their disease diagnosis comes not from medical institutions and doctors,but from health care products institutions and their marketing personnel.
To crack down on the"old pit"of health products,the current common practice is to focus on the marketing of health products,such as whether there is exaggerated publicity in advertising,whether the elderly are encouraged to use health products as drugs,whether they are shoddy,whether there is price fraud,etc.However,there is a lack of sufficient attention to the illegal practice of medicine,such as the use of medical equipment for examination and the random diagnosis of the elderly.In this incident,although Ms.Weng's mother-in-law may have suffered the harm of illegal medical practice,the final treatment was only for health products,not for the"medical"link.
We should see that the efforts to crack down on the"pit old"of health products in the"medical"link should be much greater.Because whether it is exaggerated publicity or excessive marketing,it is a more severe and successful treatment to negotiate returns and punish exaggerated publicity.However,to crack down on the"medical"link,the illegal consequences of illegal medical practice are much more serious,and the deterrent force will be greatly improved.This means of attack should be made more full use of.
Of course,there are many problems in the"medical"link.Among them,there are blind spots in the regulatory functions of different departments,which is an urgent problem to be solved.Previously,in some places,regardless of illegal medical practice,the health administrative department was only responsible for supervising medical institutions,and non-medical institutions engaged in medical activities,which became a gray area with no boundary between the two.Make up for such regulatory weaknesses,crack down on the"medical"link,make the marketing of health products lose the"technical support"of medicine,and it will become much easier and more effective to deal with the"pit old"of health products.