Latest news with #hospital staff
BBC News
a day ago
- Health
- BBC News
China kindergarten poisoning: Investigation finds cover-up as six arrested
Dozens of provincial officials and hospital staff attempted to cover up a lead poisoning case that made hundreds of children sick in north-west China and sparked widespread outrage, an official investigation has officials tampered with the blood tests of students who were poisoned at Peixin Kindergarten in Tianshui city, Gansu provincial authorities said in a report on officials also accepted bribes from an investor in Peixin while neglecting food safety inspections across several pre-schools, the report an attempt to attract more students, Peixin chefs had used inedible paint to "enhance the look" of its meals, the report said. Food samples were later found to contain lead 2,000 times in excess of the national safety people were initially detained for their involvement in producing the toxic snacks. Six of them - including the kindergarten's principal, cooks, and an investor - have been arrested, according to the report. Ten other officials will face "formal accounting procedures" while another 17 people are under disciplinary revealed on 8 July that 235 children from the privately-owned kindergarten were being treated in hospital for lead poisoning after eating steamed red date cakes and sausage corn buns. As of Sunday, 234 of them have been Gansu Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention was ordered to test 267 students and staff at Peixin after some showed symptoms earlier this month, but officials "did not take the work seriously". The person in charge of the tests "seriously violated operating procedures, which distorted the results", according to the report named several people under investigation and set out lead concentrations of various food samples, among other also accused staff at the Tianshui No. 2 People's Hospital of "serious dereliction of duty" and described the institution's management of the case as "chaotic". The Chinese internet paid keen attention to the report, with some commending what they see as transparent disclosure and others asking for perpetrators in this case to be held accountable. In contrast to its chiding of provincial and city-level officials, the report said there was "quick response" from the central government, which convened an expert panel "at the earliest opportunity" to review any gaps in Monday, China published a set of national guidelines for the provision of meals on campuses. Among other things, it mandates that every new batch of food must be tested, and that rice, flour and cooking oil must be bought at centralised procurement points. Authorities in Tianshui have also announced that children suffering from lead poisoning can receive free treatment at designated hospitals and legal assistance will be made available to affected families. Peixin will be temporarily managed by a state-owned kindergarten.
Washington Post
6 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
Miss Manners: Vet wants equal treatment for all patients
Dear Miss Manners: I have changed from working at a veterinary clinic in a lower socioeconomic area to one in a more affluent area. I have noticed that when I refer my patients to the local specialist hospital, the hospital staff members are much more polite and respectful than they were when I called from my old clinic. This upsets me on behalf of my previous clients, as they and their animals deserve the same treatment and respect as my new patients. Is there a way to gently encourage the hospital staff to be less concerned with the status of the area that the patients are from? Yes, but if you want to avoid being called naive about the fact that money talks, you will have to play naive. As a referring veterinarian, you will, at some point, be asked to share your thoughts on the hospital in question. No matter the form this takes — questionnaires from the hospital itself, informal discussions at your new clinic, whatever — include some negative examples about the facility's customer service from your days at the old practice. Do so without mentioning where the patients involved were from. Given your status, this will cause concern and follow-up from the hospital. Even if the reasons for the disparate treatment turn out not to be as simple as you suspect, the hospital staff will realize your new clinic is speaking for the broader community. Miss Manners suspects all patients and facilities will benefit from this realization. Dear Miss Manners: Once a month, I make a four-gallon pot of soup for my small church community. When planning the soup, I keep in mind the many food sensitivities that members of the community have and still manage to serve a tasty variety of soups. Today, a member served herself a large bowl of soup, seasoned it, took a few bites, then dumped the remainder of her soup back into the pot. I approached her and asked her why she had done that, and she said it was more than she could eat. I told her she should have dumped the extra soup in the compost bucket. I told her to never do that again. She acted as though I was being rude. For food safety, I should have dumped the entire pot of soup into the compost, but I did not. I warned another member that the soup was no longer free of the seasoning she is allergic to, and apologized because she looks forward to my allergen-free soup. How should I have handled the culprit? You should have been polite to the errant member. Perhaps you were, though your lack of interest in asserting that you were — and your use of words like 'culprit' — make Miss Manners wonder. A polite correction would still have allowed you to make the woman understand that her thoughtlessness meant other people were going to go hungry. But it would have been done with a sad tone, not an angry one — using phrases of apology, not confrontation. It would also have emphasized consideration for church members with allergies, not your own anger about wasting the time you put into the preparation. If apologizing to this culprit seems counterintuitive, Miss Manners asks you to consider the alternative: Do you want to be polite and change this person's behavior? Or do you want to be rude — and, by going on the attack, give her a valid grievance? New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday through Saturday on You can send questions to Miss Manners at her website, You can also follow her @RealMissManners. © 2025 Judith Martin
