In late July, doctors at a Shanghai hospital were called into work at 6.30am for an urgent meeting, expecting to be faced with a healthcare emergency.
Instead, they were met by management, telling them the hospital would in September be placed under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Chinese Communist party’s internal watchdog.
While the hospital remained open, “we are focused on reporting each other to the authorities and conducting self-inspection; the CCDI will probably send an inspection team to our hospital next month to decide who to arrest”, said one of the hospital’s doctors, who asked not to be named.