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
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.
