Beijing hospitals to get insurance for doctors

To protect doctors from increasingly violent attacks, twenty one public hospitals in Beijing plan to beef up their security systems and pay medical liability insurance for doctors, Beijing Youth Daily reported.

The Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals recently issued a regulation that instructs all public hospitals in the city to join the medical liability insurance program and buy compulsory medical liability insurance.

In other words, when an incident occurs in a hospital and there is property damage or injury or loss of life to the medical staff, the victims can receive compensation.

Also, medical institutions are urged to reinforce complaint management and build convenient channels for patients to file complaints.

In addition, public hospitals will step up security management and install more electronic eyes with high definition to ensure all-round monitoring. Also the high definition can recognize faces clearly, which officials hope will help greatly in solving medical disputes.

The latest moves come after a series of serious medical disputes, some of which have involved fatal attacks against physicians.

According to the Chinese Association of Medical Doctors, China reported at least 10 cases of serious medical disputes in February alone.

Chinese medical workers are under pressure from growing doctor-patient disputes, according to a survey released by DXY.COM, an online community for medical staff.

The survey found that 86.7 percent of its participants, which include 3,360 doctors, pharmacists and nurses, have encountered disputes in the past 12 months, and 65.7 percent of them are not satisfied with the way doctor-patient disputes are handled by hospitals.