Four senior members of the medical staff at Guangzhou No 8 People's Hospital have been punished — including the director of security, who was removed from his post — after a woman was investigated earlier this week on suspicion of stealing a mobile phone from the hospital's isolation ward for coronavirus patients.

According to a statement released by The Guangzhou Party Commission for Discipline Inspection on Thursday, Zou Shangrong, vice-president of the hospital, and Chen Fengjuan, deputy director of the hospital's medical section, were admonished.

The director of the hospital's security section, Deng Jianxiang, was given a major demerit and removed from the post, while Zhang Zhixiong, director of the hospital's logistics services section received an administrative warning, the statement said. Three security guards were fired.

The incident indicates that the hospital has some serious management loopholes, the statement said.

The incident involved a 22-year-old woman, surnamed Yang, who entered an isolation ward on the third floor of the hospital's inpatient building using an elevator on Monday night. A 67-year-old male was being treated in the ward for novel coronavirus pneumonia. The man later reported that his phone was missing.

When notified by the hospital, the local police substation investigated and Yang was detained the next day by four police officers wearing protective suits. Yang, who is unemployed, was found on a street about 400 meters away from the hospital in Guangzhou's Baiyun district at around 5 pm on Tuesday. She is from Tongren, Guizhou province.

Yang, would have been exposed to the coronavirus, known as COVID-19, if she stole the phone. So she was taken to the hospital and placed in isolation.