MORE than 100 medical staff in Yunnan Province went on strike Wednesday, protesting patients’ violence against them, Chinese-language media reported.

    The workers at Yulong People’s Hospital held a banner in front of the main building saying “severely punish people disrupting order at the hospital and bring peace back,” according to Shanghai Morning Post.

    The strike was triggered by an incident Monday, in which the manager of the hospital was held by about 30 relatives of a patient who had undergone spinal surgery there in 2012. A stainless steel implant broke in July, and the family members demanded 300,000 yuan (US$48,390) as compensation.

    The manager was dragged from the fourth floor to a ward on the first floor of the hospital where he was held for more than an hour, as the relatives hurled insults at him, according to the report.

    The striking staff members returned to work Thursday.

    Medical staff at the hospital said they were angered by the incident.

    Violence against medical workers has risen in recent years. In February, a doctor in Heilongjiang Province was beaten to death by a patient and another doctor in Hebei was seriously injured when a patient stabbed him in the throat.

    (SD-Agencies)