Card-playing nurses blamed for negligence

An 84-year-old man almost died in a State-owned hospital when nurses failed to notice his heart and breathing had stopped because they were playing cards, relatives claimed.

Chen Xiang, a retired Beijing railway employee who suffered from kidney cancer, underwent surgery at Fengtai Hospital on Jan 13. The hospital is a large local hospital with more than 1,600 medical staff and 1,100 beds.When my brother pushed open a second door, he found the head nurse and two other people playing cards with a doctor, surrounded by several nurses

After surgery, Chen was returned to his ward. Within minutes, Chen's sons noticed from medical machines that their father's heartbeat and breathing had stopped.