The media have reported widely about how a doctor in a Wuhan hospital in Hubei province removed the stitches from a migrant worker's wound just after stitching it because the patient didn't have enough money to pay the bill. It was a cruel act and should be condemned. But more than that it raises a question mark on the medical ethics being followed by doctors, says an article in Hefei Evening News. Excerpts:

Doctors are meant to save lives and treat the sick. Their profession is one of kindness and help. But some doctors' behaviors are below even the basic human level.

The news of the ill-treated migrant worker has angered people because the doctor removed the stitches and bandage without using local anesthetics and neglected his safety after treating the injured man for his wound and left him in great pain and danger. It was a gross violation of medical ethics.

According to medical ethics, a doctor or nurse should not cause harm to patients deliberately, a norm that the doctor certainly didn't follow.

Doctors and hospitals are supposed to provide medical treatment to a patient, and consider the short- and long-term effects of their actions as well as a patient's monetary condition sympathetically. These are all part of medical ethics.

But the doctor at the Wuhan hospital caused both physical and mental harm to the patient, which will have a bad effect on society, for it sets a horrifying precedence.

The case is a tragic example of how some doctors and hospitals accord importance to money over human life. For them profit takes precedence over public welfare. That makes them no better than "bloodsuckers".

It's tragic to see the medical professional being turned into a mockery of sorts. This is not what medical science is supposed to be. What would happen to society if saviors and protectors start acting like brutal "extortionists"?

(China Daily 08/11/2011 page9)