In 2010, the last year for which official figures are available, the health
ministry says there were 17,000 protests or attacks directed against doctors or
hospitals in China. The number of incidents, which continues to rise at a
double-digit rate each year, may have more than doubled since 2005, official
estimates indicate.
Last
month the death of a woman treated for a sore throat and fever at a hospital in
southern China triggered a riot of 2,000 people. Earlier in the month, four
staff in the ear, nose and throat department of a private hospital in the
southern city of Shenzhen were stabbed by a patient treated for allergic
rhinitis.
In
May a nurse was attacked in Nanjing by a woman who claimed that a Caesarean
delivery at the same hospital 16 years before had harmed her sex life. And last
year a Beijing doctor who had operated on a man with laryngeal cancer was
stabbed by him multiple times when his cancer returned. The man sued the
hospital in 2008 but knifed her before the court was able to hear the case.
Incidents
like these are not just isolated acts perpetrated by those driven crazy by
illness or grief. Instead they reflect widespread public anger at the high cost
of medical care in China, fuelled by corruption in the medical system where many
patients have to pay bribes just to secure a doctor’s appointment.
China
has vastly expanded health insurance coverage in recent years, but according to
a
new McKinsey report, it still spends only about 5 per cent of gross domestic
product on healthcare, compared with 10-12 per cent in western Europe and 15-17
per cent in the US – and far less per capita. There are not even two doctors for
every 1,000 people in China – and many of them are paid only a few thousand
renminbi per month.
Doctors
are under intense pressure to generate extra income for their hospitals – not to
mention themselves – leading patients to suspect them of practising mercenary
medicine. Patients have unreasonably high expectations of the wonders of modern
medicine, and the gap
between rich and poor, in healthcare as in everything else, is glaring.
Patients say they do not respect doctors – and many doctors say the last thing
they want their children to do is study medicine.
Li Huijuan is a lawyer who sits on the medical risk control and management
committee of the China Association of Medical Doctors. She represents the family
of Wang Hao, a trainee doctor at a hospital in northern China, who was killed
recently by a 17-year-old whom he had never even treated. The assailant, who became enraged after repeated hospital visits failed to
cure his tuberculosis and back problems, spent Rmb4.30 ($0.68) on a fruit knife
at a nearby supermarket, and attacked the 1.8-metre tall Dr Wang because he
feared the tall doctor would otherwise block his way, Ms Li said.
