Healthcare reforms fundamental to end attacks on doctors

A 47-YEAR-OLD DOCTOR working for an armed police hospital in Tianjin was stabbed to death by three people on her way to visit a patient on Thursday morning. ThePaper.cn comments:

The three attackers have been seized and detained by local police, who said that the three assailants did not know the victim and were not her patients either. And witnesses of the violence said the attackers just said the doctor should blame her bad luck for falling prey to them by accident.

Since the killers' motivation for the crime has yet been made clear, it is too early to attribute the tragedy to the tense relations between doctors and patients and their families as some have done.

Violence against medical staff, especially those working in public hospitals, has become increasingly frequent. At least, seven doctors have been killed while working at public hospitals, and dozens more wounded, since 2016. It is common that the doctors and nurses, who work in a stressful working environment because of their heavy workload, have to keep themselves on high alert in case of violence from their patients, patients' families or even strangers.

It is pity that the profession has become a valve for some people to vent their anger with the problematic medical dispute resolution system, or even the whole of society.

There is no buffer zone between doctors and patients once a medical dispute or accident happens, making doctors the scapegoat for many institutional illnesses.

Despite the great progress China has made in medical care reform, it remains expensive to see a doctor. If the patients cannot afford to pay their medical bills, they have no choice but leave their sickbed to make room for new patients who can.

Generally speaking, doctors' incomes are generally lower than the level they deserve. So some of them rely on kickbacks from the pharmaceutical drug agents and prescribe their medicines as much as possible, and some take red envelopes, containing cash, from patients for granted.

So instead of calling for strengthened protection of doctors, it is more practical to resolve the aforementioned problems through reforms of the health system.