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Nurse removed over cruel patient tweets

2011-02-24 15:43

A Nurse has been removed from her post after being accused of writing cruel tweets about her patients, Shandong Business reported Thursday.

The nurse surnamed Li from Shantou city in Guangdong province allegedly used her micro blog to vent her frustration when a patient's care affected her travel plans or sleep.

In one alleged incident on Feb 16, it is claimed the nurse refused a family's request to turn off a life support machine of a dying man until the next day because it would mean extra work dealing with the corpse. The next day on her micro blog she was thrilled that the patient's death occured while she was not working as it did not interrupt her social time.

Some bloggers took screen grabs of the nurse's ruthless tweets and spread them on the Internet, sparking a wave of protest from netizens who were stunned and questioned her medical ethics.

"I feel indignant. People can not decide how long they are going to live, but they deserve respect when dying. It's a pity to see such a medical staff today, when the relationship between doctors and patients are already fragile. She should be expelled." A blogger commented on the tweets which have been forwarded 16,000 times so far.

Li was also the victim of a human flesh search which is a cyber-manhunt by netizens aiming to discover someone's personal information. Within one day she was identified as a paramedic working at the Hospital of Chinese Medicine in Shantou, South China's Guangdong province.

The hospital conducted an internal investigation into the case announcing on its website Wednesday that Li has been removed from her original clinical post and had her prescription rights restrained.

But Li insists her micro blog was hijacked and has reported the case to police.

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