Subject: Fwd: A Home-Visiting Chinese Student Died in Shanghai Hospital

From: Zhen-Yu Sun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 May 94 22:23:48 CDT

Hi, this may not be the appropriate group to post this message. My
appology first.
Since this kind of incidence may happen to any of us, we should let
people, as many as possible, be informed, and be concerned. Thank you.

--------------------- Forwarded message starts here ---------------------
Title: A Home-Visiting Chinese Student Died in Shanghai Hospital

ZHAO Hua, a fellow Chinese student studying at University of Wisconsin
at Madison, flew home with his wife excited to visit his in-laws in
Beijing and his parents in Shanghai on Dec. 26, 1993. But he never made
the trip back to continue his Ph.D study. He passed away suddenly on
Jan. 20 in Shanghai due to the flagrant negligence of some medical
doctors in Huashan Hospital. The following is a summary of events that
led up to Hua's death.

During his first week of stay in Beijing, Hua was prescribed some
medicine for a dental ailment. He noticed that after a few days the
medicine caused his gums to bleed but was not alarmed since he was in
good spirits and felt fine. After traveling to Shanghai he noticed
that he had blood in his urine and possible internal bleeding. He was
sent to Huashan hospital on Jan. 13 to have the symptoms examined and
was diagnosed as being allergic to the medicine he was prescribed. He
was advised to come back to the hospital for a blood test on Jan. 18.
Again, the prognosis was that he was having an allergic reaction to
the prescription medicine. He was assured not to worry.

On Jan. 19, his condition deteriorated significantly. When taken to the
hospital, he was found to have an extremely low blood platelet count.
At this critical moment, he was denied to stay in the hospital's
emergency care room for the night even though there were still two
beds open in the room. Under the sympathy of a nurse, his mother
fetched a bed from home and set it up in a corner of the emergency
room.  Next morning around 8:30AM, Hua started to have severe
headaches.  Until 11:00AM, the hospital finally allocated a bed for
Hua, but no one was sure which bed it was and Hua ended on the ground
for some time until the bed situation was resolved. From 8:30AM to
12:30PM, his mother sent for doctors eight times, but they responded
only three times.  In one instance, a doctor came and looked at Hua
briefly. Then he asked if Hua could see clearly and left. In another
occasion, a doctor told Hua to relax and take it easy. One doctor even
criticized Hua's mother being too paranoid and said that panic would
affect the Hua's spirit outside of the patient's room.

At 10:45AM, Hua couldn't speak any more. It was around 12:30PM that
the doctors began to start their job. But before administrating the
medical procedures, the doctors insisted on full payment, no matter
how hard Hua's mother tried to convince them that money was on the
way. Valuable time was lost.

At a critical time, Hua needed an infusion of blood platelets. The
doctors said that they were out in storage in hospital. Hua's family
was asked to find them on its own. When Hua's mother finally arranged
to get the platelets from another hospital, the doctors didn't even
make a phone call to complete the requesting procedure. Actually Hua's
mother was told later by staffs in the blood storage center in Huashan
that they were ready to make blood platelets at that time.  In all the
chaos, when finally Hua's parents-in-law brought four boxes of blood
platelets and flew in from Beijing, Hua had already passed away at
4:50PM. The hospital claimed the official cause of death was M2a acute
leukemia. However, the family found on Jan. 19, a doctor made changes
on Hua's Jan. 18 medical records.

In the aftermath, Huashan held two meetings concerning this incident.
In the first meeting, they admitted in making some small mistakes in
treating the patient. But in the second meeting, they disavowed any
wrongdoing and responsibility.

Until now, Hua's family still cannot go back to its normal life. Hua's
80-year-old grandmother, who was so glad to see her grandson coming
back from far away, could not take in this tragedy and got sick in
bed.  Hua's wife, also a student at University of Wisconsin, has to
delay her study and stay at home taking care of family matters.  Hua's
mother, a strong woman who hasn't recovered from the great pains of
losing her son, was fighting an up-hill battle to see the justice
served.  But Shanghai Medical School, the management party of Huashan
Hospital, is delaying an overdue investigation. Hua's former working
unit refused to represent Hua because he was an overseas student. The
help-me phone calls the mother made to a local radio station were
disconnected every time without a reply.

This incident really shocked us who know Hua well from college. He was
known to be in very good health and was the sports minister in his
department student organization. He is survived by his wife, his
parents and two 80-year-old grandmothers. His college classmates are
all very upset by this unfortunate incident and intend to help his
family to fight for his justice.

This tragedy is not only a tragedy of Hua and his family, but also is
a tragedy of all overseas Chinese students as a whole. Not crying out
loud now, we will see this happen again and again.  We don't think
that an overseas student should be treated like this in his/her
homeland. We don't think a patient in need should be delayed medical
treatment because of money.  We believe the doctors and administrators
of Huashan hospital should take their responsibilities for any
wrongdoing.

We drafted a letter to be sent to the Chinese media, proper ministries
and People's Representatives to ask for a thorough and fair
investigation and to identify the responsible parties. We included the
appeal letter at the end of this report. WE ASK WHOEVER IS CONCERNED
TO CO-SIGN THIS LETTER WITH US. YOU CAN SEND YOUR NAME TO
[email-masked]

For more information, refer to
"ftp://swordfish.berkeley.edu/pub/fudan85.html" in your mosaic tool.

We have set up a memorial fund to raise money for Hua's family and to
prepare for a legal action if necessary. Any caring individual can
send check to

Qing Ke (Coordinator of Zhao Hua's memorial fund)
Dept. of Electrical Engineering 
Hopeman Hall 
University of Rochester 
Rochester, NY 14627
email [email-masked]

Thank you for your attention and support. Let's make a difference and
prevent such an unfortunate incident from occurring again.

In memory of Zhao,Hua

--a group of friends of Zhao,Hua
[email-masked]
April 12, 1994

====================A Short Resume of Hua Zhao======================

Hua was born in Shanghai on July 19, 1967. After he graduated from
Fudan Affiliated Middle School in 1985, he went on to study at the
physics department in Fudan University. He graduated in 1989 and went
to East China Institute of Theoretical Physics as a research
assistant. (The Institute is affiliated to East China University of
Chemical Engineering.) Then, one year later in 1990, he came to
America and went to Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana as a
graduate student in Physics. In 1992, he started his Ph.D study and
research in the Biophysics Department at University of Wisconsin at
Madison.

====================Start of the petition letter======================

To whom it may concern,

We are writing to you concerning the death of Hua Zhao during his home
visiting trip in January 1994.

Hua Zhao was a Chinese student studying at the University of Wisconsin
at Madison. He went back to China visiting his parents at the end of
December, 1993. He passed away on January 20, 1994 in Huashan Hospital
in Shanghai.

This news shocked many of us who knew Hua well before and could hardly
believe a young and fulfilling life could end so suddenly.  More to
our surprise, sorrow and anger, we learned later from Hua's family
that some doctors in Huashan Hospital were totally irresponsible at
their job and they were the direct cause of this tragedy. They made
one mistake after another in the rescue process. Hua was denied to
stay in the emergency care room for observation the night before his
death when he was in critical condition already.  The next morning,
valuable time was lost when some doctors insisted on full payment
before they could start their medical procedures, even though Hua's
mother repeatedly promised them that money was on its way. At another
crucial moment, when Hua needed an infusion of blood platelets, the
doctors said that the platelets were out in storage and the family was
asked to find them by its own. When Hua's mother eventually found the
platelets in another hospital, the doctors didn't even make a phone
call to complete the requesting procedure. Actually Hua's mother was
told later by staffs in the blood storage center in Huashan that they
were ready to make blood platelets at that time.  When finally Hua's
parents-in-law brought four boxes of blood platelets and flew in from
Beijing, Hua had already passed away ...

A doctor was even seen to be changing Hua's medical records on Jan. 19.

After this tragedy, Huashan first admitted making a few small
mistakes. But later it completely denied any wrongdoing and
irresponsibility in the whole procedure.

Until now, Hua's family still cannot go back to its normal life. Hua's
80-year-old grandmother, who was so glad to see her grandson coming
back to visit from far away, could not take in this tragedy and got
sick in bed. hua's wife, also a student of University of Wisconsin,
went back with Hua. She lost her husband and now has to delay her
study and stay at home for a semester to take care of family matters.
Hua's mother, a strong woman, who still hasn't recovered from the
great pains of losing his son, has been fighting an up-hill battle to
see the justice served. But she has encountered enormous difficulties.
Shanghai Medical School, the management party of Huashan Hospital is
delaying a overdue investigation. Hua's former working unit refused to
represent Hua because he was an overseas student. The help-me phone
calls the mother made to a local radio station were disconnected every
time without a reply.

We think what happened to Hua and his family is completely
contradictory to the government policy of encouraging overseas
students coming back to visit, stay and work. It is also inconsistent
with the policy of respecting knowledge and intellectuals. In order to
prevent incidents like this from occurring again and to save all the
patients who can be saved, we firmly urge you start a thorough and
comprehensive investigation immediately and draw a clear and fair
conclusion for Hua's family.  Your prompt action will show the
sincerity to welcome overseas students back to China.

Hua's death is a great loss to his family, his friends and his
country. His tragedy is not only of his own, but is of all.

He is always going to be remembered by us.

Signed by 

Guanlong Chen 	U. of Purdue		[email-masked]
Fei Deng 	UC San Diego		[email-masked]
Fang Dong 	U. of Ohio		[email-masked]
Yitong Gu  	U. of Dartmouth		[email-masked]
Qing Ke 	U. of Rochester		[email-masked]
Zhen Hu		Caltech			[email-masked]
Jianfeng Ma				[email-masked]
Jun Mao 	U. of Leicester		[email-masked]
Youbin Mao 				[email-masked]
Yuan Ren 	U. of Mass.		[email-masked]
Bing D. Su 	U. of Virginia		[email-masked]
Ye Sun		USC			[email-masked]
Zhen-Yu Sun 	CMU			[email-masked]
Jane Wang 	U. of Chicago		[email-masked]
Peter Xiao 	UC Berkeley		[email-masked]
Lixin Yan 	U. of Michigan		[email-masked]
Jihui Yang 	Wayne U.		[email-masked] 
Kun Yang 	U. of Indiana		[email-masked]
Weidong Yang 	U. of Oregon		[email-masked]
Hong Yu 	Montana	State U.	[email-masked]	
Jun Zang 	CUNY			[email-masked]
Donghui Zhang 	NYU			[email-masked]
Yuanhan Zhang 	U. of Missourri		[email-masked]
Jiangwen Zhu	U. of Wisconsin		[email-masked]

April 12, 1994