Medical ethics urged after hospital negligence criticised

China's Ministry of Health (MOH) has underscored medical staff's professional ethics and their obedience to laws and regulations after one patient was abandoned by a hospital nightshift, dying the following day, and another suffered after stitches were wrongly removed. "Some medical staff are not people-oriented and lack in the spirit of life saving and basic professional ethics. The management of emergency clinics also has loopholes," the ministry said in a statement released Thursday as official criticism of two local hospitals' misconduct. In one case, the Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in northern Hebei Province received a female patient who had suffered skin lacerations after being hit by a motor vehicle one night in July 2011. The patient, who has nobody accompanying her, was found to be homeless and mentally disabled. After doctors gave basic treatments to her wounds, hospital superintendents decided to send the patient away in a taxi. She was found dead the next morning, according to the statement. In the other case, which occurred in August last year, a nightshift doctor in central Hubei Province removed the stitches on the split tendons of a patient's right hand following a disagreement on surgery fees. Doctors and officials involved in these two cases were given punishments ranging from warnings to being stripped of their posts, said the statement. Five people involved in the case in Hebei had been detained for further investigation. The MOH urged health authorities and medical institutions to learn lessons from the incidents and bolster hospitals' internal management. The supervision and assessment of medical institutions should also be increased and detected misconduct by hospitals and medical staff will be dealt with immediately, said the notice.