Chinese hospitals lambasted

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 16

Chinese hospitals lambasted

NZPA-Reuter Peking

China’s official press has condemned incompetence and negligence in some State hospitals, giving two examples of patients dying because of staff indifference.

The “People’s Daily” newspaper’s overseas edition said a worker in the northeast city of Harbin died after seven hospitals refused to admit him with a serious back injury. The hospitals gave many reasons why they could not admit him, including inadequate X-ray facilities, no beds, and the fact that it was time to clean the wards.

Next morning, his condition worsened and he was taken back to two hospitals, which again refused him entry. He died on the steps of one of them, the newspaper said. The Hubei provincial daily newspaper said a pregnant woman in a district hospital bled to death in April while the nurse in charge was away for more than two hours watching television and chatting. It said the woman’s relatives spent 40 minutes searching for the nurse, but by the time they had found her chatting in the hospital shop, the woman was dead.