In Handan, Hebei province on April 29, a doctor was fleeing from the relatives of a recently deceased patient when she fell from the hospital’s third floor and suffered fatal head injuries. Wang Ping, 34, “tried to escape from the window with a bed sheet but failed,” according to a fellow doctor quoted in Sina.
As the doctor tells it:
“At about 5 pm Monday, a critically ill boy who suffered from congenital heart disease was brought to our hospital. Doctor Wang and our department director carried out emergency treatment. Unfortunately, the boy passed away soon…. At first, family members of the patient looked quite calm. However, one hour after the boy’s death, they became angry and attacked some hospital staff before they were dragged away.”
Xinhua, in an article published earlier today, got in touch with the deceased boy’s relatives, who tell a slightly different story. The boy, surnamed Shen, was apparently at the hospital for treatment of a cough, not heart disease, which an aunt claims had been cured when he was just one year-old.
The aunt continues: Wang Ping gave the boy an electrocardiogram and listened to his heartbeat and said nothing was wrong. She suggested giving him an IV treatment.
Shen’s aunt says that only three or four minutes after the IV had been planted into the back of the boy’s hand, he began loudly complaining about not feeling well. Wang Ping is now accused of continuing the treatment despite the protestations, until the boy passed out on the table, his fingers and toes twitching, lips discolored. Rescue efforts, which included CPR and shots, were not successful, and the boy died on the spot.
Family members rushed to the hospital, where they began beating and scolding the doctors, with Wang bearing the brunt of the blame. The situation escalated from there.
The daring escape, with Wang being lowered via bedsheet, was ill-advised. A witness says she hit a second-floor windowsill during her fall, and possibly landed on her head.
We’ve documented before the need for beefed-up security at hospitals, as incidents like this happen much too frequently. This is one of those tragic stories in which there are only losers. “In the three days after his wife died,” Xinhua reports, speaking of Wang Ping’s husband, “every time he closes his eyes, what appears before him is his wife and her fall from the third floor.”
(H/T Alicia)
Terrible and sad. Perhaps the doctor is guilty of malpractice. Even so, there is an urgent need for better security in hospitals.
Several doctors I have worked with here in South Korea have been too scared to go to work because of threats by deceased patients families.
Some families will even hire special hospital thugs associated with local mafia to extort money from doctors.
One side effect of these shenanigans is the increase of capable med students leaning towards safer and higher paying medical practices like plastic surgery and away from difficult, lower paying and now “dangerous” but altogether more important practices like cardiology.
I thought EVERY med student in S. Korea had to major in cosmetic surgery and then take obligatory classes in something trivial like cardiology, neurology, or internal medicine?
Typical hack Chinese doctors. We don’t know what’s wrong with him, so give him an industrial strength antibiotics IV and charge them 1000 kuai. Why bother checking for other symptoms? Just give him an IV and get him out the door. Peasants feel better if they get IVs and can hold the little bag above their head. It makes them feel like we did something.
Yes the doctors most likely fucked up, but typical Chinese patients are just as bad.
This is what happens when you don’t have a functioning legal system…people take justice into their own hands.
Passing a Chinese medical exam is quite easy. There is one question. “A patient enters the room, what do you do?”
A. Ask patient about his situation.
B. Ignore patient until they offer a bribe.
C. Don’t ask about ailment but just give IV drips.
D. B+C are both correct.
This sounds like a standard allergic reaction to penicillin. Chinese doctors dont even ask if you are allergic and dont bother to test. I am glad i am not allergic because last time i went to the hospital they gave me IV Amoxicillin with out even asking anything else about my medical history, this is a penicillin derivative. If I had been allergic i would have went into shock before the drip even finished. People with penicillin allergies commonly will have seizures when injected. Someone with a heart condition and being young like this boy would never survive a serious reaction like this
I do not like the idea of beefed up security at hospitals. Security needs to be lax because this kind of thing is precisely what needs to continue.
China’s hospitals are notorious for changing the facts of medical malpractice and surgical misadventures to avoid ever paying any compensation to the victims’ families.
A terrifying number of doctors here just don’t give a shit about whether they kill you or not. They do not have to give a shit because they face no punishment whatsoever (fines or suspension of license would be ideal).
Vigilante justice is the only justice in a system so thoroughly broken.