The 33-year-old man, surnamed Lian, carried out the attack
at a hospital in Wenling city in the wealthy eastern province of
Zhejiang, Xinhua news agency reported. Lian had gone to the ear, nose and throat department looking
for the doctor who treated him, but he was not there. He pulled
out a knife and stabbed the head of the department instead,
Xinhua said. Lian also stabbed two other doctors before he was restrained
by security guards, it added, without providing further details.
Earlier in the week, a man killed himself by jumping from a
hospital building after stabbing a doctor six times in
northeastern Liaoning province after a disagreement over
complications from surgery on his arm. Two doctors were also beaten up by angry family members of a
patient who died in hospital in southern China's Guangdong
province.
China spent 719.9 billion yuan ($120 billion) on health care
last year, a 12 percent increase from the previous year, in
recognition of official concern about a key driver of social
resentment.
But hospitals are frequently overwhelmed with patients, and
doctors are badly paid leading to corruption and a suspicion
that staff are more interested in making money by prescribing
unnecessary drugs and treatment than tending the sick.
The government this year has launched a sweeping crackdown
on medical corruption, targeting foreign drug makers in
particular. Many other Chinese are simply unable to afford health care
at all, despite government efforts to provide a basic safety
net, which has also prompted attacks in the past.
The Health Ministry this week announced plans to provide
better security at hospitals, saying that last year seven people
were killed and 28 injured in assaults on medical staff.
Ministry data shows that violent attacks directed at doctors
and other health care workers in the form of beatings, threats,
kidnappings, verbal abuse and murder reached 17,243 cases in
2010, the latest year for which such figures are available.
($1 = 6 yuan)