The morning of 17th February began at 8.30am with a vicious attack on one of Nanjing’s most senior liver transplant specialists.
The doctor suffered a stab to his left leg, fractured jaw and mouth lacerations during the attack.
“A young man entered [Dr.] Sun’s office and locked the door. Colleagues had to break in to save Sun after hearing strange noises, which sounded like someone struggling. There was a lot of blood in the office”, said Dr. Chen speaking with JS China.
Gulou police have since detained a suspect. However, it turns out he is neither a patient nor family member, so a possible motive for the attack is still unknown.
By no means is this an isolated and rare incident in Nanjing and China. Attacks on hospital staff in the past have been violent and are increasing.
In May 2014, a “woman tried to stab a nurse in the chest at Nanjing Zhongda Hospital, but Chen managed to grab ahold of the 15-cm knife. She suffered several cuts to her left hand and a scratch on her abdomen,” wrote the Peoples Daily.
Meanwhile, in March of the same year, a Nanjing official attacked a nurse over a minor dispute. In the incident that was so violent the nurse was paralyzed, both the attacker and her husband held positions high up in the government while public opinion was that there would be no justice.
Elsewhere, Guangzhou Dentist Chen Zhongwei died in a hospital after being stabbed 38 times by a former patient in May of last year.
Just a month later, a 10-year-old Hunan boy was stabbed by a man in the Yuejiaqiao Health Center. He was the son of a worker whom had previously treated the attacker for emphysema.
Elsewhere, in Hebei a doctor was brutally stabbed to death due to a leg infection in July 2016.
The root cause for such violent outbursts in places of caring such as hospitals is to be found in China’s rapid development. According to the China Hospital Management Society, “As the country’s patchwork healthcare system expands to meet the needs of an increasingly affluent, demanding populace, tensions between patients and doctors are running high”. From 2002 to 2012, attacks jumped an average of almost 23 percent per year. A survey by the China Hospital Association found that the average number of assaults per hospital, per year, rose from 20.6 in 2008 to 27.3 in 2012,” reported TIME.
The tragic but telling upshot is that steps are being put in place to offer healthcare workers protection. Doctors at an unnamed hospital in Nanjing said a recent incident in which a patient’s family members brought in a gang of people to intimidate hospital staff prompted them to equip their doctors with something to defend themselves. The pepper spray bottles that have as a result been placed in outpatient rooms take the expression “providing a safe work environment” into an entirely new sphere.
