Medical staffs prepare to administer nucleic acid tests for residents in Xi'an. Photo: VCG

Xi'an health commission apologizes for negligence after a pregnant woman suffers miscarriage at a local hospital in the northwest Chinese city.

An official from the Xi'an City Health Commission on Thursday apologized publicly to the pregnant woman who lost her baby due to delayed treatment and promised to learn lessons from it, and vowed to spare no efforts to ensure residents' medical needs amid the latest coronavirus outbreak.

"On behalf of the health commission, I deeply apologize to the patient and for the poor access to medical treatment for special groups" including patients and pregnant women during this outbreak, Liu Shunzhi, director of the commission, said.

Several officials and hospital-related persons-in-charge in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province, were disciplined for their poor anti-virus performance after a pregnant woman lost her baby due to delayed treatment at a local hospital, Xi'an authorities announced on Thursday.

The woman, pregnant for 8 months, lost her baby after being left waiting outside Xi'an Gaoxin Hospital for two hours, drawing wide criticism on Chinese social media. It was an incident caused by negligence, the authorities said.

Li Qiang, director of Xi'an Emergency Center, and Liu, director of the commission, were both given intra-Party warnings for poorly performing their duties. Fan Yuhui, general manager of the hospital, was suspended from duty and other related persons-in-charge were removed from offices.

The topic received over 280 million clicks on Sina Weibo on Thursday. Many netizens expressed regret over the woman's situation and called for improved hospital services during the citywide shutdown. 

The Xi'an health commission will require the hospital to communicate with the patient and deal with post-operative rehabilitation, and compensation in a proper manner. The commission also instructed the hospital to apologize publicly and fix all loopholes to strengthen hospital management and optimize treatment process.

The local authorities stressed on Wednesday that hospitals must not use the excuse of virus prevention and control to refuse treating certain patients. Green passages should also be set up for critical and severe patients including pregnant women.

On Wednesday, some communities in Xi'an started to count the number of pregnant women, according to media reports. A community sent out a notice to register the basic information of pregnant woman including their names, ages and phone numbers, a move welcomed by local residents.