Three medical staffers and one Beijing resident were attacked on Monday at Chaoyang Hospital and are being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, just weeks after a doctor at another Beijing hospital was slashed to death.
Beijing’s Municipal Public Security Bureau said on Monday that a 36-year-old man, surnamed Cui, who allegedly attacked the four people with a kitchen knife, has been arrested. Police are investigating the incident.
Beijing’s health authority strongly condemned the violence against medical workers on Monday, saying the city is mulling a legislation to better protect security and order at medical institutes.
Two medical workers, one volunteer at the hospital and one resident were injured, according to the authority.
An ophthalmologist named Tao Yong was stabbed in his head and arms and was being treated at an emergency room, witnesses and doctors told the Global Times.
Global Times reporters at the hospital saw several police vehicles parking outside the hospital, and blood could be seen in the hospital’s ophthalmology department. Several security guards were seen in the hallway of the hospital. The ophthalmology department stopped receiving patients on Monday afternoon.
Chaoyang Hospital, which is a Class III Grade A general hospital, had not responded to Global Times’ requests for comment on Monday.
This is the second attack on doctors in Beijing within a month.
Yang Wen, a female doctor at the Civil Aviation General Hospital in Beijing, died on December 25 after being slashed in the neck by a family member of a patient the previous day. The attacker Sun Wenbin has been sentenced to death on January 16.
Tensions between patients and doctors have been increasing and Yang’s murder has sparked a debate about violence against medical professionals. Netizens called for enhanced security checks at hospitals.
Hospitals in Nanning, capital of South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, reportedly became the first in China to set up security checkpoints. Provincial-level hospitals in the city were required to install metal detectors and security checks.
Photo: Lin Luwen/GT
