Sunday 15 November 2009
Ministry enters row over death of doctor
The Ministry of Health has stepped in and ordered the Beijing health bureau to look into the case of a Peking University professor of medicine who died in 2006 after being treated by three unlicensed medical postgraduates at the Peking University First Hospital.
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Ministry enters row over death of doctor
Yu Aitong
05 November 2009
The Ministry of Health has stepped in and ordered the Beijing health bureau to look into the case of a Peking University professor of medicine who died in 2006 after being treated by three unlicensed medical postgraduates at the Peking University First Hospital.
The case has caused a national outcry after it was reported by CCTV on Wednesday, ahead of a second trial to be held today at the Beijing Municipal High Court.
The doctor who died was Xiong Zhuowei. Her husband, Wang Jianguo, an economics professor at Peking University, sued the hospital in the Beijing No1 Intermediate Court. The court ruled in July that the hospital was fully responsible for her death and ordered it to pay 750,000 yuan (HK$852,500) in compensation. Now Wang is appealing for more compensation.
Xiong, 49, who had won two prestigious national research grants, went to see doctors at the hospital when she felt a slight pain in her back. A doctor told her that she needed small surgery and would recover in four days. The surgery took place on January 24, 2006, but a few days later, Xiong collapsed on the ground.
On January 31, the hospital announced that Xiong had died of a pulmonary embolism. Wang said he could not believe that his wife of 20 years could die from a minor operation. Then he read her medical record: “Three of her ribs were fractured, and while doctors were trying to revive her with cardiopulmonary resuscitation, they caused damage to her heart and liver. I almost fainted while I was reading her medical record.” Wang said.
Wang discovered that three doctors involved in Xiong’s treatment and attempts to revive her were housemen and interns forbidden from practising without supervision. He contends his wife’s medical record was changed intentionally after she died to conceal the truth.
The hospital denied all the accusations yesterday. “The report [by CCTV] was not true, and the media and the family want to use public opinion to influence the final verdict,” a hospital spokesman, who would not identify himself, said. “The doctor, Yu Zhengrong, who was accused of being unlicensed when he treated the victim, had a certificate but not a licence at the time.” On the mainland, the two are separate documents.
“But he was allowed to treat patients under supervision during the interim, according to the Health Ministry policy,” the spokesman said. But the hospital has not given any information about the two other doctors, who were allegedly unlicensed.
“The hospital is making excuses,” said Zhuo Xiaoqin, Wang’s representative. He posted on the internet an official letter from the Beijing Health Supervision Institution giving the official investigation result from the Beijing Health Bureau.
It said the hospital had flouted regulations by hiring three medical school postgraduate students, including Yu, to treat patients without supervision.
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