CRI听力:More Chinese Kindergartens Probed over Drug Scandal

The legal representative for Jinbei Kindergarten in Yichang city of Hubei province has been detained. According to a notice in front of the kindergarten's entrance gate, all children attending the school can receive a free medical examination.

Many parents that sent their children to the kindergarten said their kids were made to eat "bitter tablets," but there has been no explanation from the kindergarten.

On March 18th, the principal and vice principal of Xingang Kindergarten in the same city were detained for illegally giving children anti-viral drugs.

The children that attended the kindergarten all had stomachaches, an irregular heart-beat, itching, vomiting and dizziness for extended periods of time.

Zhou Xiying is one of the parents.

"My kid gets stomachache, leg pains and has itchy skin. I need to scratch his itches every evening."

The two new cases were discovered just days after similar incidents were reported in the northwestern city of Xi'an and the northeastern city of Jilin.

The Ministry of Education, along with the National Health and Family Planning Commission, has ordered local governments to check all kindergartens, along with elementary and middle schools, and focus on medical malpractice in kindergartens.

Feng Ding is a lawyer who has long been involved in child welfare cases. He says filing a lawsuit is necessary, but the parents may run into obstacles, because it will be very hard for them to collect evidence and prove that these unusual symptoms were directly connected with the pill the kids were asked to take.

He says the current laws and regulation need more follow-through.

"The supervision, especially from executive department's…the actual supervision is very week. Their 'oversight' actions are usually just routines tasks like processing the documents, rather than conducting specific check-ups and inspections."

Cheng Yuan, Executive Director of Pingji Center, an NGO focusing on providing assistance to the underprivileged people, says the kindergarten needs to acquire parents' authorization if they need to give children medicines, not to mention whether it's really necessary to use the medicine in the first place.
 
Considering multiple cases were found nationwide, Cheng Yuan says it's not only a matter of blaming the supervising departments for not doing their jobs.

"Probably, the citizen the society should take actions to participate in perfecting the mechanism, rather than just gossiping and venting anger about drug and food scandals. People can demand government information publicity so our rights can be ensured."

The legal representative, principals and doctors of the kindergartens in Xi'an and Jilin and Hubei were all detained for illegally practicing medicine.

Under Chinese law, medical practitioners must have a license. If convicted, the accused could face more than 10 years in prison if the maximum sentence is handed down.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.