A SIX-MONTH-old baby boy, from the poor province of Fujian, only had a common cold, but Huang Yuxiang died while on an intravenous drip at Shiqiao Hospital in Panyu, Guangzhou City, in what doctors described as an “unusual death”.
There is growing public discontent about China’s public health system, especially among the country’s legion of 130 million migrant workers who feel they are being treated as second-class citizens in the cities where they move to work.
The Communist Party sees mass protests arising from economic issues such as poor healthcare, corruption, official inaction or simple incompetence as a far greater threat to single-party rule than any pro-democracy or human rights activism.
Some estimates put the number of “mass incidents” or protests in 2008 at over 125,000.
While more than 20 million of these migrant workers lost their jobs during the early months of the economic downturn, many have returned to work in the vast infrastructure programmes begun as part of the government’s four-trillion yuan (€400 billion) fiscal stimulus plan.
In Panyu, about 100 family members and friends of the infant’s parents, all of them migrant workers, demanded more of an explanation and when they didn’t get it, they went on the rampage, smashing windows and destroying medical facilities at the hospital.
Police detained 14 people and had to seal off the seventh floor of the hospital to stop the unrest. The hospital said the infant’s parents refused to sign the consent form when Huang was in a critical condition, while the family still wants an explanation.
Meanwhile, outside the Xiangya Hospital in Hunan province, hundreds of people queue up every night just to get the “passport” you need to see a doctor.
At 5.30pm the gates open, a starter’s whistle is blown and there is bedlam, with people sustaining injuries in the crush for the pass to see the doctors. Touts sell tickets for the queue, and again, many of those seeking help are migrant workers.
The health reform plan unveiled in April this year, which will spend 850 billion yuan (€84.6 billion) on health over three years, envisages a clinic in every village, 2,000 new hospitals and health coverage for 200 million uninsured Chinese.
The plan foresees universal healthcare services available to all of its citizens by 2020, as it seeks to address a system that is threatening to buckle under the demands of 1.3 billion people.
There was huge public anger following a CCTV exposé of Peking University First Hospital, a top hospital, where medical care was being carried out by trainees and malpractice cases were common.
Despite the resilience of the economy, there have been a growing number of public order disturbances. Guangzhou has seen a rising number of mass disturbances, despite the city’s tightened security ahead of next year’s Asian Games.
More than 30 migrant workers from Hunan threatened to commit suicide by jumping from Haizhu bridge in downtown Guangzhou this week after a local beer company defaulted on their wages.
In another case over the weekend, also in Panyu, migrant workers from Guizhou province brawled with local residents after two children bumped into each other. The children’s mothers – a migrant labourer and a Panyu resident – fought with each other and later called their relatives and friends to join, leading to a real punch-up.
Eight police cars were destroyed and three police officers were injured. The violence was quelled only after police detained 26 people, mostly migrant workers.
Lawmakers say tighter security is not working and local authorities need to “take effective measures” to deal with migrant workers’ complaints.
There could be more trouble on the horizon. At least 40,000 migrant workers from the Three Gorges Dam area have either been wrongly registered or unregistered for identification and therefore have no access to compensation payments, a senior official in Chongqing told local media.