- Francis Mao
- BBC News
May 3, 2022, 12:02 GMT
Chinese authorities have sacked four Shanghai officials following putting an elderly patient in the death cart while he was still alive, believing he was already dead.
And on Sunday, videos surfaced online showing two people who appeared to be mortuary workers putting a body bag in a car.
The two workers were later seen pulling the bag open, and one of them might be heard saying that the patient was still alive.
The incident sparked widespread outrage on Chinese social media.
Officials in Putu District confirmed the accident late Monday, adding that the patient was subsequently taken to hospital and in stable condition.
Authorities said five officials and a doctor were under investigation.
Four officials, including the deputy director of the local civil affairs office and the director of the old man’s nursing home, were dismissed. The doctor’s license was also revoked. The identity of the patient was not announced.
The incident was denounced by many on the Internet, and Hu Shijing, a former editor-in-chief of a state news station, described the incident as a “serious dereliction of duty that nearly killed.”
Another commenter on the social networking site Weibo said it was a sign of the “chaos” taking place in Shanghai.
Shanghai, China’s largest city of nearly 25 million people, is now entering its sixth week of restrictions aimed at reducing coronavirus cases, which began rising once more in March.
Most people are still prohibited from leaving their homes for any reason, and those infected with the coronavirus and their contacts are forced to go to the state-run quarantine centre. A video clip of confrontations between the police and people forced to leave their homes spread.
The BBC earlier reported evidence that authorities in Shanghai had found difficulties in dealing with the outbreak.
China is one of the last remaining countries that is still committed to measures to eliminate the Corona virus, unlike most countries in the world that are trying to coexist with the virus.
But the policy aimed at zero infections has come under great pressure in recent weeks with the spread of the omicron variant in China.
