Medical staff burnout critical

Zhou Zhenghao always presents a smile when talking about his daughter, but his face grew tight when the talk turned to his daughter's career choice in the future.

“I will never let her become a doctor in the future. Furthermore, I will also never agree to let her to marry a doctor,” said the 31-year-old man who is a dentist at a large hospital in Tianjing municipality.

“People will never really know how hard and tough the job is, except when you are in the middle of it,” he said.

Zhou works for about 10 hours each day, with as many as 30 patients a day at peak times.

Like Zhou, a large number of medical staff across the country believe that they are working in an unsatisfying environment with less understanding of their patients.

A survey said about 74.2 percent of medical staff in Shanghai have job burnout, cited by Labor Daily, a newspaper under Shanghai Municipality Labor Union.

The survey conducted by the Shanghai Medical Labor Union, which polled about 170,000 medical staff in the city, tried to discover their occupation and living conditions.

The survey said about 72.5 percent of polled medical staff showed occupational strain caused by high-stress work, and more than 80 percent said “they are very tired.”

And nearly 60 percent said the trust between doctors and patients was not high. Medical costs, communication, treatment result and service attitude were the main factors contributing to the result.

“In a busy time, we don't have time to have lunch,” he said. “But what we give away is not always understood. Patients don't always understand and trust you,” he added.

“Sometimes, I prescribed a certain type of medicine for my patients, but patients thought that I did that on purpose just to receive kickbacks. Under such circumstances, it's really hard for many doctors to remain in this profession.”

Only 25.5 percent said they would continue to choose this profession if given a second chance to choose a career. Only 13.7 percent said they would like to see their children follow in their footsteps on a medical staff, according to the report.

Besides that, about 42.2 percent of medical staff in Shanghai have suffered or seen their colleagues experience mental and physical harm at work. In the forms of harm, 88 percent were from verbal abuse and 8.3 percent were physical attacks.

“The doctor-patient relationship has become increasingly intensive in recent years. There are a lot of negative comments about the profession, which is actually a highly subjective judgment. The efforts made by medical staff are not judged in an objective way,” said an official surnamed Qian from Shanghai Medical Labor Union. He declined to give his full name.

Over the past years, China has spared no efforts promoting medial reform, trying to make health care more affordable and accessible for the country's more than 1.3 billion population, but continuous medical disputes and complaints have been reported.

“It's laborious work in China to seek a doctor. A patient may spend several hours waiting in the hospital,” said a Shanghai woman, Luo Fang.

“But compared with the long time waiting was the doctor's fast treatment. Doctors, wearing what seemed to be careless expressions on their faces, prescribed medication before you finished explaining your illness. I do have to question the quality of the medical service in such a hurried way,” she said.

wanghongyi@chinadaily.com.cn