What’s trending?
The case of a sick child who died after being denied care at a local hospital because of Covid-19 restrictions has sparked online outrage in China.
A 4-year-old girl suffering from acute laryngitis died on March 11 while her family waited for a negative coronavirus test result before she could be hospitalized in Changchun. The northeastern city is under strict lockdown amid a worsening Covid-19 outbreak.
The hashtag #Jilin girl dies because the hospital didn’t open a green channel for her #因未开绿色通道吉林女童就医时死亡 was viewed over 200 million times and received around 10,000 comments by Thursday afternoon on Weibo.
This is not the first time a patient hasn’t received emergency treatment due to Covid restrictions. Two months ago, an pregnant woman had a miscarriage after not being admitted soon enough to her local hospital in the northwestern city of Xi’an, which was under strict lockdown at the time.
What’s the story?
An article by online media account CN-Healthcare on Wednesday wrote that 4-year-old Wanjun (pseudonym) began wheezing and had an itchy throat on March 8. Her village clinic diagnosed her with acute laryngitis.
Her parents took her to a local hospital in Nong’an county in Changchun on March 11 to receive treatment, after the clinic was told it could not accept patients due to the prevalence of Covid-19 in the area.
After she was passed between departments for about two hours, Wanjun’s parents asked for her to be hospitalized, for which the hospital required negative nucleic acid test reports from the whole family.
While waiting for the negative coronavirus test results, Wanjun’s condition deteriorated and attempts to save her life failed.
The vice president of the hospital told “CN-Healthcare” that triage took “too long” after watching surveillance footage of the girl’s treatment.
“This hospital has the medical green channel, through which patients can be treated without a negative coronavirus test result. They (the doctors) didn’t open the green channel for us, which resulted in the death of the child,” a relative of Wanjun told Chinese media outlet Yidianzixun Wednesday.
“We have reached a settlement with the hospital, and the compensation given by the hospital was reasonable,” she added.
What are people saying online?
Many Weibo users are furious, as such cases have happened repeatedly.
One Weibo user wrote, “from Xi’an to Changchun, when will the hospitals learn to be flexible? Although they (Wanjun’s families and the hospital) have reached a settlement, the girl’s life could not be saved.”
Weibo users expressed support for the comment, “I hope that such tragedies will never happen again.”
Some social media users reflected on reasons for such tragedies, with one saying “the shortage of medical resources in small cities is not only reflected in medical devices, but also in other aspects, such as doctors’ ability, system regulations, and medical processes.”
“It has proved that one-size-fits-all epidemic preventive measures are not working. After all, epidemic prevention is about protecting lives,” one commentator said.
Contact reporter Li Hang (hangli@caixin.com) and editor Heather Mowbray (heathermowbray@caixin.com)
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