Better security for hospitals: proposal

Dozens of members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) submitted a proposal to the committee on stepping up security against attacks on hospital staffers by patients and visitors, in a bid to control the rising menace of such assaults, The Beijing News reported on Wednesday.

Ling Feng, director of the neurosurgery department of Beijing's Xuanwu Hospital and a CPPCC member, along with 30 other CPPCC members, had submitted the proposal on November 1 and sought an emergency response system for victims.

Ling said that there should be "zero tolerance" for violence against medical practitioners and security regulations in hospitals should be improved. He also suggested that hospitals should be managed by the government as public places and their security should be handed over directly to the police rather than make them the responsibility of private security guards hired by hospital management.

"Currently, the security standard in hospitals is lower than that of public places. If a person disturbs order in a public place that person could be detained," Deng Liqiang, director of the legal department at the Chinese Medical Doctor Association (CMDA), told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"But according to regulations at hospitals, people will only be punished if they physically hurt or kill someone."

Over the past few years, incidents involving violence against doctors have been on the rise as reported from various parts of China, at least six cases since October.

A doctor in Wenling, East China's Zhejiang province, was stabbed to death by a patient on October 25, in a recent such case. Two other medical practitioners were also injured.

Ling said in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV) on October 31 that she felt obliged to initiate the proposal after the Wenling incident.

"I feel sad for my colleague and the murderer should be punished by law," Ling said in the interview.

The proposal said the "fundamental solution" to clashes between patients and the medical fraternity is to speed up healthcare reform. The violence hurts the morale of medical workers, the proposal added.

"The key issue here is that the government needs to invest more, not only to improve the working environment for medical practitioners, but also to step up security in hospitals," a practicing doctor from Beijing told the Global Times, on condition of anonymity.

In his survey conducted at hospitals across 11 provinces in August, Yin Dakui, head of the CMDA, found that 78.01 percent of doctors said they did not expect their children to take to their profession in future, CCTV reported.