Coronavirus in China: medical students demand better pay, protection on Covid front line

Students want to be free to go home for the winter holidays; and for those staying to be paid the same as staff doctors

Sichuan hospital denies graduate medical student, 23, who died of sudden cardiac causes on Wednesday worked after having a fever for days

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Protests have erupted in the past two weeks in medical schools and hospitals across China, including Nanjing Medical University, pictured. Photo: Twitter

Published: 5:00pm, 16 Dec 2022

Protests have erupted in medical schools and hospitals across China in the past two weeks, with medical students on the Covid front line demanding better pay and protection against the disease.

The South China Morning Post confirmed that school administrators in central China’s Wuhan, Hubei province, and to the east in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, agreed to some of the protesters’ demands.

Viral videos on social media show medical students gathering in a handful of other cities, shouting “equal pay for equal work” and “anyone who wants to return home should return home”.

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The conditions facing medical students was highlighted by the death of a 23-year-old graduate medical student at Sichuan University’s West China Hospital in Chengdu on Wednesday night.

The hospital said the student died as a result of a cardiac condition but posts online said the student had been working for days despite having a persistent fever – claims the hospital denied, according to news portal The Paper.

This wave of protests occurred not long after young people and university students took to the streets in November, demanding China remove its stringent zero-Covid controls. There has since been a rapid relaxation of Covid-related travel restrictions.

In the aftermath, doctors and medical workers are likely to face a higher risk of infection and are expected to be overwhelmed at work by fever patients, as major spikes in Covid-19 cases start appearing in major cities.

Coronavirus in China: medical students demand better pay, protection on Covid front line

Students want to be free to go home for the winter holidays; and for those staying to be paid the same as staff doctors Sichuan hospital denies graduate medical student, 23, who died of sudden cardiac causes on Wednesday worked after having a fever for days

Students want to be free to go home for the winter holidays; and for those staying to be paid the same as staff doctors

Sichuan hospital denies graduate medical student, 23, who died of sudden cardiac causes on Wednesday worked after having a fever for days