Outcry: Weibo users have criticised the selfies taken by hospital staff in operating theatres at a private Chinese hospital.
Beijing: A regulator in China has punished hospital staff after photos of them posing around a patient lying on a surgical table prompted outrage on the country’s Weibo microblogging service.
The pictures show doctors and nurses in green scrubs and blue masks locking arms and making “victory” hand gestures while a patient lay on the table under a lamp. Hospital administrators and staff in the photo faced punishments from being docked three months’ pay to demotion, the Xi’an Bureau of Public Health said on its website.
Tagged “surgical table selfies,” the photos attracted more than 8 million hits, becoming the second-most-discussed subject on China’s Twitter-like microblog. Reports of incidents including violence against hospital staff by disgruntled patients have highlighted tension between doctors and patients in recent years.
Some microbloggers on Weibo described the photos as disrespectful to the patient.
“How horrible! Would they still be able to smile if their loved ones were lying on the surgical table?” wrote a Weibo user with the name Zhongguangwei2010.
About 64 per cent of 316 Chinese hospitals surveyed said their staff had been injured in attacks by patients or their family members in 2012, while verbal abuses and threats were found in 96 per cent, according to Chinese state media reports citing a survey by the Chinese Hospital Association published last year.
The photos were taken at Fengcheng Hospital, a privately run facility in the north-western city of Xi’an, according to the health bureau’s statement. Medical staff took the photos after an operation on August 15 because the hospital was about to relocate its surgical room, according to the statement.
The hospital must apologise to the public, the health bureau said in the statement.
“If I were the person on that table, I would not thank the doctors, even if it was a successful operation,” Weibo user Michenchenmi wrote in a comment.
Bloomberg