An 11-year-old boy in Ruzhou, Pingdingshan, Henan Province died last week after his mother took him to an unlicensed medical clinic to receive treatment for pain and swelling in his throat.
The boy, Yang Yang (real name unknown), died of shock after a surgical knife was used to cut his throat.
Yang Yang's family have been picketing the clinic site for days to demand retribution, but the practitioner responsible for Yang Yang's death skipped town immediately after the incident, and his whereabouts remain unknown.
On January 15, Yang Yang's mother says that she received a phone call from her son at boarding school, saying that his throat hurt and was swelling, so she took him to see a "highly regarded" otolaryngologist named Zhang Wenli.
Zhang diagnosed Yang Yang with tonsillitis and recommended a spot of bloodletting to ease the symptoms.
"All I saw was the doctor taking a surgical knife about 15 centimeters long and sliding it into his throat," Yang Yang's mother recalled, "then he started spraying blood out of his mouth. The bleeding wouldn't stop and then blood started coming from his nose as well."
Yang Yang's mother believes that the knife must have pierced an artery in his throat, rapid blood loss then inducing the circulatory shock which led to his death.
"At the time, he [Zhang] kept saying it was normal... But in less than three minutes, my child was gone."
The Ruzhou Public Health Bureau confirmed that Zhang had no qualifications of any description, and was in no way a doctor. They deflected responsible for the tragedy to supervisory authorities, however, claiming that they are only responsible for monitoring licensed practices and not so-called "black clinics."
Zhang's clinic in Ruzhou, Pingdingshan
Zhang's "surgical equipment"
Yang Yang's blood still on the clinic floor
Zhang's name card, claiming to be a throat specialist
[Images via Oriental Daily]
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