A MEDICAL dispute mediation committee was inaugurated recently at Futian District People’s Court. At the same time, a white paper on civil suits over medical disputes between 2014 and 2018 was released, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily.

The white paper was written against a backdrop where doctor-patient disputes have become a main focus among the public. According to the white paper, public medical institutions have been the major subject of prosecution, accounting for 93.5 percent of all lawsuits over medical disputes.

Additionally, civil proceedings over medical disputes normally have long trial periods and the cases involved are hard for judges to substantiate as diagnosis and treatment requires a high level of specialized knowledge. Among the cases published in the paper, only 16 percent had been closed within six months. As a result, the Futian court introduced a third party to handle the issue to improve the quality and efficiency of every trial.

The main reason for the large number of lawsuits against public hospitals is that public hospitals see more patients with complicated and risky conditions.

According to the results, there have been 125 cases in which patients won the lawsuit, while the number for hospitals was 22. The issues considered were mainly about whether hospitals violated their medical responsibilities, whether medical staff had the required certificates and whether medical records were written and protected in a proper way.

Ding Jian, vice president of the Futian court, explained that the medical dispute mediation committee comprises 102 medical experts with at least a deputy director title from 30 of Shenzhen’s key hospitals.

“The committee has formed a medical think tank to solve professional problems so that we can help improve the quality of the judgments,” Ding said.

In order to support the committee’s work, the Futian court has issued more documents for the committee, such as a procedure for medical malpractice cases and governance measures. “We will collaborate with hospitals and medical experts to mediate medical disputes, protect the legal rights of patients and doctors, and maintain the stability and harmony of our society,” said Chen Xinzhe, president of the Futian court.

(Wang Jingli)