Chinese man convicted of murder after stabbing four hospital staff

A Chinese man who became a symbol of the fraught relationship between doctors and their patients after he stabbed four hospital staff has been convicted of murder.

In the wake of the attack, the Lancet, a medical journal, pronounced that 'China's doctors are in crisis' 

 

Li Mengnian, who was 17 at the time of the attack in March, has received a surprising amount of public sympathy with a poll on the website of the People's Daily, the official Party newspaper, showing he had support from two-thirds of respondents. 

In 2010, there were more than 17,000 "incidents" aimed at hospital staff, up from 10,000 five years earlier, and some doctors in the south of China have been issued with safety helmets and shields. 

In the wake of the attack, the Lancet, a medical journal, pronounced that "China's doctors are in crisis". 

A letter to the journal from a Chinese medical student, Li Jie, said "the deteriorating relationship between doctors and patients has turned medical practice in China into a high-risk job". 

On April 13 a doctor in Beijing was stabbed, and on May 12 a nurse was attacked in Nanjing. 

Li had travelled from his home in Inner Mongolia to the First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin's Medical University to seek treatment for an inflammation of his spine on March 23. 

He was told, however, that he had tuberculosis and needed to attend to that before taking any medication for his back, in case it worsened his illness.

The same afternoon, he returned to the hospital and stabbed Wang Hao, a 28-year-old intern, to death with a fruit knife. He attacked three other doctors, stabbing one of them in his right eye. 

His lawyer said he had been frustrated after visiting the hospital several previous times, at one point receiving the medication for his back which had been denied on that occasion. 

The court has yet to sentence Li, but other doctors said security at their hospitals had been tightened in the wake of his attack. 

Chinese doctors are woefully underpaid and overworked in the country's public health system; there is little time for communication between doctors and their patients and doctors have been accused of being corrupt. 

But patients are charged huge sums for medication and for often unnecessary treatments, and often misunderstand their medical condition. 

"There is a tension and conflict between patients and doctors, and a general distrust," said one doctor in Peking University Hospital's urology department, who asked to be named only by his surname, Wang. 

"Doctors give the patients more examinations than necessary in case there are symptoms the doctor did not initially find and the patients sue us. Just in case, we do every possible check and that is why the (cost) burden on the patients is so heavy." 

He added that the reaction to Mr Li's case, and the public support, had "appalled him" but that he thought violence towards doctors and nurses was not "the general state of affairs". 

A spokesman for the Health ministry referred to a previous vow to "maintain order and stability in hospitals and to strike out illegal acts against doctors". 

Telegraph