(File photo)

A cancer patient’s plan to create a public campaign to raise money for her treatment was swiftly halted by the online donation platform after the patient’s requested funds - 300,000 RMB - turned out to be nearly ten times what the treatment actually costs.

The daughter of the patient, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in Suzhou, Jiangsu province in October, first started the collection on Oct. 25. The description said her mother’s preliminary treatment has used up all the family's savings, and the follow-up treatment required at least 50,000 RMB every month.

Netizens began to raise doubts after someone discovered that the patient’s medical records did not classify her condition at the most severe level. Later, information from the Suzhou hospital where the patient was treated indicated that the preliminary treatment cost 17,000 RMB in total, and was largely covered by the woman's medical insurance. The patient herself was left to pay 6,800 RMB, with another possible 30,000 RMB needed for future treatment, the Beijing Times reported.

The platform quickly rejected the daughter’s application. A new one submitted by the family then put the target amount at 50,000 RMB. Once approved by the platform and verified by the hospital, the money will be directly transferred to the hospital for the patient’s treatment.

“I did not communicate with her doctor. I only heard from my mother that the medicine she needed cost more than 30,000 RMB per month. This is not counting the chemotherapy. So I wrote that we need more than 50,000 every month,” explained the daughter, surnamed Shi.

With philanthropy and charity on the rise in China, public donations are becoming more common, especially when the money is for medical treatment. However, it is also becoming increasingly common for patients' families to ask for far more money than is really needed – deliberately or not. In some cases, these extra donations, procured entirely through the kindness of humanity, end up in people's personal pockets.