The country's first public security bureau to deal specifically with disputes involving medical treatment was established in Jinzhou, Liaoning province in Northeast China, recently, according to media reports.

Disputes between patients and hospitals have increased rapidly in recent years and some have even ended up as serious criminal cases, which has drawn wide public concern.

The Jinzhou bureau, which was jointly established by the local health and family planning commission and local public security bureau, will primarily mediate in disputes between patients and hospitals, maintain normal order in the hospitals, and guarantee the rights of both residents and medical staff.

Although the bureau was established with good intentions and is expected to cope with medical disputes faster and more efficiently, people still doubt that it will have any real effect in reducing the frequency of disputes.

That is because, on the one hand, the causes of medical disputes are very complicated. Coping with these disputes involves not only public security authorities, but also the medical staff, the public health authorities and even the price control authorities.

Rather than a special public security bureau, joint law enforcement involving several government authorities would probably be more effective. But that requires an efficient coordination mechanism to enable joint law enforcement.

On the other hand, the courts will only deal with serious disputes, so that will hardly reduce these disputes at the source. The essential measure to ease the tensions between the patients and the hospitals is to implement thorough medical reforms.