医疗改革应解决医院暴力

China started a new round of nationwide healthcare reforms in 2009.

Thirty-eight-year-old Zhao Chunyan is the head of Yanshan Hospital in Beijing's Fangshan district.

She says reforms have benefited the public, providing easier access to hospitals, and reducing the individual and family financial burden.

But Zhao Chunyan notes these reforms have failed to bring substantial dividends to medical staffers.

"Doctors are limited by regulations. But all the pressure is on doctors, who are on the frontline in confrontations with patients. I hope the reforms can reduce such limitations and make full use of our medical insurance fund. Also, I hope the security of hospitals can be included in police responsibilities. Hospital workers are now in charge of dealing with conflicts or even violence, which we are not capable of."

News stories about doctors and nurses beaten or stabbed to death are not rare in China.

Some have been seriously injured, even paralyzed.

Zhao Chunyan ascribes the phenomenon partly to the scarcity of medical resources.

"People have too high expectations towards medical science, which in fact has many unknown areas. They think doctors can heal whatever sickness they have but this is not the truth. Some patients queue up for two or three hours to see a doctor, but are only given short consultations, which is far from their satisfaction."

Brain strain is another problem in hospitals.

Zhao Chunyan suggests mechanism be established to improve medical workers' social status and salaries.

"To be honest, Chinese doctors have more advanced skills in many fields compared with our foreign peers, because we have gained rich experience from cases and surgeries. But our income standard is way below. I am not asking for an excessively high salary, but I hope it could be consistent with our work load and stress."

Due to the previous reasons, there has been a common practice that patients give red envelopes with money in exchange for better treatment and services.

This may also cause tensions when patients couldn't get a satisfactory result.

Zhao Chunyan suggests medical staffers be more devoted to patients.

Public hospitals provide 90 percent of the country's medical services.

This year, China will further reduce restrictions on foreign investment in the healthcare sector.

Zhao Chunyan says this is good news.

"I think it could be helpful to divert people, reducing crowding in public hospitals. These hospitals may have more flexible regulations, with better services. But supervision is important. "

For CRI, this is Li Jing.