Attacks on medical staff seen at 60% of hospitals
Medical workers in China have started an unprecedented nationwide campaign to pay their respects to a doctor who died Thursday after being attacked by a patient.
"Those who sympathize with doctors, please change your WeChat avatar to a black ribbon to show your condolences for the dead doctor. Please give us doctors a reason to go on!" read an online statement for the "black ribbon campaign" on Saturday.
The campaign has been trending on Sina Weibo under the hashtag "black ribbon campaign," which has garnered more than 2.5 million page views and over 2,000 comments since it was posted Saturday.
The Chinese Medical Doctor Association issued an announcement on Friday in which it condemned Chen's murder and called for better protection for medical workers.
Several medical websites - including one of China's largest online pharmaceutical platforms, dxy.cn, and Guangdong General Hospital, where the murdered doctor once worked - have changed their websites' backgrounds to black to memorialize the doctor's death.
Chen Zhongwei, the former director of the stomatology department at Guangdong General Hospital, died Sunday after he was stabbed in a knife attack by a former patient on Thursday. The assailant killed himself after the attack.
The hospital confirmed that the attacker had received medical treatment from Chen 25 years ago and had a history of a medical disorder, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The hospital refused to comment further on the campaign.
"Due to increasing living standards, patients now have higher demands for medical treatment, which cannot all be fulfilled, as medical science has its limitations. If the results of their treatments are not ideal, doctors may become their punching bags," a Beijing-based doctor who asked for anonymity told the Global Times.
Of 316 hospitals nationwide surveyed in 2012, 96 percent reported verbal abuse or threats targeting their medical workers, while violent attacks targeting medical personnel occurred in more that 60 percent of them, according to a report released by the Chinese Hospital Association in 2013.
There were a total of 115 cases of assaults or murders of doctors in 2014, news site thepaper.cn reported.
Dxy.cn conducted a survey of 3,860 medical workers in 2014 and found that 90 percent of participants would not choose their profession if given a second chance. Some 58 percent of participants also said they would strongly discourage their children or friends' and relatives' children from applying to medical school.
"It's really not easy to find a good doctor nowadays, as the medical profession has lost appeal among young people, who may worry about their own safety," Tong Chunrong, a hematology specialist at Ludaopei Hematology Oncology Center in Hebei Province, told the Global Times on Sunday. Tong noted that a lack of respect from patients and a heavy workload also add to declining interest in the practice of medicine.
