China Health & Science
Beijing Changfeng Hospital Fire: Five Things To Know
29 people lost their lives due to the devastating fire that occurred in Beijing’s Changfeng Hospital on Tuesday. These are 5 things to know.
On Tuesday, April 18, a big fire broke out inside Changfeng Hospital, a private hospital located in Beijing’s Fengtai District. The incident, which killed 29 people, is now known as the “4.18 Beijing Changfeng Hospital Fire Incident” (4•18北京长峰医院火灾事故).
Videos of the incident that circulated on Chinese social media (see here) showed smoke coming out of the hospital windows on different floors, with patients hanging on to air conditioning units outside of the windows. The footage also showed patients falling down the building from higher floors.
This is the timeline of the incident as reported by Chinese official media:
• April 18 / 13:00-15:00
At 12:57 on April 18, the Fengtai District fire and emergency services received an alert that a fire had broken out in the east building of the inpatient department of Beijing Changfeng Hospital. The fire, which was extinguished at 13:33, killed 21 people. The cause of the incident was still under investigation.
• April 18 / 15:30
At 15:30, the rescue work was finished and a total of 71 patients were evacuated and transferred to other hospitals in Beijing.
• April 18 / Evening
Changfeng Hospital closed its doors and only allowed immediate family members of inpatients to still enter the hospital. The Chinese Non-government Medical Institutions Association, the largest association of private hospitals in China, later also announced that they had canceled the membership of Beijing Changfeng Hospital in light of the incident.
• April 19 / 9:00
As of 9:00 local time, official sources reported that the death toll of the fire incident had risen to 29 people. 27 of them were patients who were treated at the hospital, and some of them died after their transfer to another hospital. The average age was 71.2 according to China Youth Daily.
• April 19 / 12:00
In a briefing held by Beijing authorities, it was said that the fire originated from sparks that arose during renovation and construction work at the hospital, according to Chinese media reports. Authorities stated that the Changfeng Hospital director, along with 11 others (including the hospital’s Vice President, the construction company’s leader, and one construction workers on site), had been detained for their criminal liability in the fire incident.
• April 19 / Late afternoon
According to CCTV, Beijing’s Fengtai District has set up a community working group (群众工作组) to provide assistance and support to patient’s families and help with any practical problems at the scene.
Here are five important things to know regarding the deadly fire at Beijing’s Changfeng Hospital:
1. The Patients Were Especially Vulnerable
The fire reportedly broke out at the 5th floor of the Changfeng Hospital, which is a private hospital specializing in neurology, vascular tumors, and arteriovenous malformations.
The patients that were staying at the higher floors at the affected building were especially weak, as they were mostly elderly patients and those receiving critical or end-of-life care. Many of them were mobility-limited patients who could not easily get out of bed and escape the fire by themselves.
2. There Were No Adequate Fire Evacuation Measures in Place
There were no adequate fire evacuation measures in place at the hospital, where hospital rooms were crowded with multiple patients. According to one nurse who was quoted by China Youth Daily, she had to climb down a water pipe from the 8th floor of the hospital, which is the building’s top floor. The videos that circulated also showed the lack of fire stairs, as patients fled from windows and held on to air conditioning units.
Because the fire occurred during daylight hours, emergency responders were able to act quickly, the hospital building had only 8 floors, and rescue efforts were not hindered by road obstructions, the high death toll resulting from the Changfeng fire is all the more surprising and tragic.
In late February of this year, Changfeng Hospital had released news about strictly implementing fire prevention and control measures. The hospital reportedly also held a fire prevention and control meeting according to government regulator requirements, but the April 18 fire showed that these measures were not actively implemented.
3. The Construction Work on the Hospital Seemed Unregulated
Chinese media source The Time Weekly (时代周报) reported that residents in the hospital’s neighborhood stated that the renovation of the building had been going on for some time and that many wires could be seen outside of the building where the fire occurred, expected to be illegal power lines (私拉电线) without proper safety measures.
The cause of the fire can be traced back to sparks that were generated during renovations on the inside of the hospital, at the inpatient department, and they reportedly ignited volatile fumes from combustible paint on the site.
This also suggests that the construction workers and the renovation procedures in general did not follow proper safety or risk assessment protocols that could have prevented the fire from breaking out.
4. Media Coverage of the Fire Was Initially Limited, Comments Censored
Although the Changfeng Hospital fire is now all over Chinese social media, news about the fire was strictly controlled in the direct aftermath of the incident.
On Twitter, VOA News reporter Wen Hao (@ThisIsWenhao) noted how public anger erupted across Chinese social media on Tuesday as videos and social media posts about the fire were taken down. Wen states that it was not until 20:49 that local official media first announced the fire and the number of deaths.
Reporter Vivian Wu (@vivianwubeijing) also noted how it was not until about 21:00 before Chinese news outlets received the “green light” to report on the incident.
All the big reports about the incident only were released eight hours after the fire started, suggesting that local authorities wanted to make sure the fire was under control and that there was enough information on the incident – and how to communicate it to family members and the general audience – before further news was released and went viral on social media.
In a blog that has now been censored on socials titled “5 Facts the News Conference Didn’t Tell You About the Changfeng Hospital Fire that Killed 29 People” (“长峰医院火灾致29人死亡，发布会没告诉你的5条真相”)* – still online at iFeng – the author called it “a mystery” that such a major fire in Beijing could stay under wraps for eight hours until the official announcement came out. The author, along with other sources, also claimed that some family members did not know about the fire until they saw the news pop up.
In 2022, a fire that occurred in Urumqi city, Xinjiang, triggered waves of mourning and anger on Chinese social media. On Weibo, there were many questions and rumors surrounding the incident at a particularly sensitive zero-Covid time, when frustrations were already building (read all about the aftermath here).
Although the context and location of the Urumqi fire is very different from the Changfeng one, it seems clear that there was a government-orchestrated media strategy following the direct aftermath of the April 18 fire to keep information flows under control.
5. The Incident Reignited Scrutiny on Private Hospitals in China
The fire at Changfeng Hospital has reignited scrutiny on the role of private hospitals in China, which have been previously also been criticized for prioritizing financial gain over the well-being of patients.
In light of this incident, some netizens mention Putian Medical Group, a powerful player in China’s healthcare industry that has set up private hospitals all over the country. Putian has previously been criticized for overpricing patients, working together with Baidu to lead patients to their clinics, and fraudulent affairs (read more here).
Now, Changfeng Hospital – which runs a number of hospitals in twenty cities across the country – is also facing backlash for spending hundreds of millions of yuan on advertising their medical services while suffering financial losses. At the same time, they were clearly not allocating enough resources for proper fire control and safety measures in their buildings.
Chinese media outlet The Observer wrote that the hospital actually shows similarities with the Putian Medical Group, as various clinics or hospitals led by Changfeng were previously also reported for medical scams. The Fengtai branch itself was penalized a total of 11 times since 2016 for various reasons (#长峰医院7年间至少被罚11次#).
For now, many people are still questioning how the incident could have happened and why its outcome is so tragic. While further investigations are still underway, some of these questions will hopefully be answered in the near future.
By Manya Koetse
Follow @whatsonweibo
* The five questions that the news conference did not answer according to the blogger relate to: 1. Why family members and the general audience only learnt about the fire at such a relatively late time; 2. Why the death toll of the incident was so high considering the circumstances; 3. Why the hospital was allowed to do interior construction work while also resuming normal operations; 4. Why the owner of the Changfeng Hospital group is not among the 12 people detained after the fire; 5. Why Hunan patients who were treated at the hospital were allegedly transferred to private secondary hospitals in Beijing.
Get the story behind the hashtag. Subscribe to What’s on Weibo here to receive our newsletter and get access to our latest articles:
Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.
©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
China Health & Science
Stolen Bodies, Censored Headlines: Shanxi Aorui’s Human Bone Scandal
A Chinese company illegally acquired thousands of corpses to produce bone graft materials sold to hospitals—a major scandal now being tightly controlled on social media.
China Food & Drinks
Chinese Woman with Heartbreak Passes Away after Drinking Bottle of Baijiu
Three friends are held partially responsible for not intervening when the woman consumed 500ml of baijiu.
An incident that happened on the night of May 21, 2023, has become a trending topic on Chinese social media today after a local court examined the case.
A woman named ‘Xiao Qiu’ (alias), a resident of Jiangxi’s Nanchang, apparently attempted to drink her sorrows away after a heartbreaking breakup.
She spent the night at a friend’s house, where she drank about 50cl of baijiu (白酒), a popular Chinese spirit distilled from fermented sorghum that contains between 35% and 60% alcohol. One entire bottle of baijiu, such as Moutai, is usually 50cl.
She was together with three female friends. One of them also consumed baijiu, although not as much, and the two other friends did not drink at all.
As reported by Jiupai News, the intoxicated Xiao Qu ended up sleeping in her car, while one of her sober friends stayed with her. However, at about 5 AM, her friend discovered that Xiao Qiu was no longer breathing. Just about an hour later, she was declared dead at the local Emergency Center. The cause of death was ruled as cardiac and respiratory failure due to alcohol poisoning.
The court found that Xiao Qu’s friends were partly responsible for her death, citing their failure to prevent her excessive drinking and inadequate assistance following her baijiu binge drink session. Each friend was directed to contribute to the compensation for medical expenses and pain and suffering incurred by Qiu’s family.
The friend who also consumed baijiu was assigned a 6% compensation responsibility, while the other two were assigned 3% each.
On Weibo, many commenters do not agree with the court’s decision, asserting that adult individuals should not be held accountable when a friend goes on a drinking spree. Some commenters wrote: “You can tell someone not to drink, but what if they don’t listen?” “Should we record ourselves telling friends not to drink too much from now on?”
This is not the first time for friends to be held liable for an alcohol-related death in China. In 2018, multiple stories went viral involving people who died after excessive drinking at social gatherings.
One case involved a 30-year-old Chinese man who was found dead in his hotel room bathtub in Yangzhou after a formal dinner with friends where he allegedly drank heavily. The man reportedly died of a heart attack. His friends reached a 1 million yuan (±US$157,000) settlement with his family, with the cost shared among the friends who were present during the night.
Surveillance cameras in Jinhua captured how the man was unable to stand or walk after drinking with his friends.
Another case involved a man who died when he was left by his friends at a hotel in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, after heavily drinking at a banquet. Surveillance cameras captured how the man was unable to stand or walk after drinking with his friends. Those friends also paid a compensation together of 610,000 yuan (US$96,000) to the man’s family.
Organisers of an alcohol drinking contest in Henan province were also ordered to pay a compensation of over US$70,000 after one participant died due to excessive alcohol intake in July of 2017.
These cases also triggered online discussions about how Chinese traditional drinking culture often encourages people at the table to drink as much as they can or to exceed their limits; the goal sometimes is to literally “take someone to the ground by drinking.” When someone proposes a toast, everyone at the table is required to finish their glasses, sometimes at a very high pace.
In light of the latest news, some commenters write on Weibo: “No matter what kind of drinking gathering it is, for someone who is already drunk, others should intervene to prevent them from continuing to drink. Even if they invite, provoke, or insist on drinking themselves, they should not be allowed to continue. Otherwise, it not only harms them, you might end up facing legal responsibility yourself.”
Others remind people that overindulging in alcohol when you’re in a state of distress is never a good idea, and that no heartbreak is worth getting drunk over: “There are plenty of other fish in the sea.”
By Manya Koetse
Get the story behind the hashtag. Subscribe to What’s on Weibo here to receive our newsletter and get access to our latest articles:
Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.
©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
Hidden Hotel Cameras in Shijiazhuang: Controversy and Growing Distrust
Death of Chinese Female Motorcycle Influencer ‘Shigao ProMax’ Sparks Debate on Risky Rides for Online Attention
Why the “人人人人景点人人人人” Hashtag is Trending Again on Chinese Social Media
Weibo Watch: Small Earthquakes in Wuhan
Weibo Watch: The Land Rover Woman Controversy Explained
Hero or Zero? China’s Controversial Math Genius Jiang Ping
A Triumph for “Comrade Trump”: Chinese Social Media Reactions to Trump Rally Shooting
About Wang Chuqin’s Broken Paddle at Paris 2024
“Land Rover Woman” Sparks Outrage: Qingdao Road Rage Incident Goes Viral in China
The “City bu City” (City不City) Meme Takes Chinese Internet by Storm
China at Paris 2024 Olympics Trend File: Medals and Moments on Chinese Social Media
Weibo Watch: The Land Rover Woman Controversy Explained
Stolen Bodies, Censored Headlines: Shanxi Aorui’s Human Bone Scandal
Fired After Pregnancy Announcement: Court Case Involving Pregnant Employee Sparks Online Debate
Weibo Watch: Going the Wrong Way
-
China Insight5 months agoThe Tragic Story of “Fat Cat”: How a Chinese Gamer’s Suicide Went Viral
-
China Music7 months agoThe Chinese Viral TikTok Song Explained (No, It’s Not About Samsung)
-
China Insight7 months agoThe ‘Two Sessions’ Suggestions: Six Proposals Raising Online Discussions
-
China Insight11 months agoThe Story of Li Jun & Liang Liang: How the Challenges of an Ordinary Chinese Couple Captivated China’s Internet