We could have communicated better with the doctor, Shanghai police say

Shanghai police have given their explanations of events that led to the handcuffing of a doctor at a local hospital after the video of the incident went viral on Friday.

Huang Bo, head of Tangqiao Police Station in the Pudong New Area where the hospital is located, said the couple who reported Dr Zhao Xiaojing, a chest specialist at Shanghai Renji Hospital, to the police required them to take Zhao to the police station for questioning, local news website Shanghai Observer reported on Saturday.

“We took them away first. It’s understandable and fair that the other party involved should be taken to the police station as well,” Huang said.

Zhao said he didn’t want to go with the police before finishing his work.

“Something like this has happened before. One of my colleagues had to spend three hours in a police station after a scuffle with a patient. I couldn’t afford to lose so much time during working hours,” the doctor was quoted as saying by the news website.

Zhao said he usually has over 100 patients on Wednesdays when he holds consulting sessions. After 6pm, he has to check over 60 in-patients in the ward and prepare for four operations the next day.

Zhao spent only 15 minutes in the police station in the afternoon and went back again after 7:30pm when he finished the day’s work, the report said.

Huang, however, wished the police could have better communicated with Zhao and avoided the clash.

“We had to act so that people who reported the incident don't feel aggrieved that we were being supportive of the doctor,” he said.

Huang said he wished the handcuffing could have been avoided but they were acting as per law.

“We could have sought support from the hospital to talk to the doctor so that he would come with us," he said.

Huang said if the police officers at the scene had been less emotional and more patient, the incident of handcuffing the doctor could have been avoided.

“The enforcement of the law in this incident was legal, but not flexible enough,” Huang said. “We will work on that in the future.”

Zhao also admitted that he dismissed the police request too quickly in his effort to focus on his work.

“I was not aware of police summons,” he told Shanghai Observer.