Zhu Sun, Li Lei, Li Yuanchao
The second Female Labor Camp, Labor Reeducation Branch Bureau, Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Justice, Chongqing, China.
Leg Med (Tokyo). 2011 May;13(3):116-9. doi: 10.1016/j.legalmed.2010.12.003. Epub 2011 Jan 26.
Although China had greatly improved its health and medical system, the contradiction between arduous medical tasks and insufficient health resources has not been fundamentally resolved. This contradiction raised a large number of legal issues in medical industry. Literatures about these issues are usually published in legal journal, and are not easy accessible to clinicians. We thus provide clinicians a brief introduction to the legal liability of medical malpractice, and describe the debate about the punishment setting of China's medical malpractice crime in detail. Considering the complexity and humanitarian nature of medical practice, legislators set a relative lenient punishment system for medical malpractice crime. But the "aggravating" supporter argued that, judging from criminal jurisprudence, only serious irresponsible medical personnel might face criminal penalty, so severe penalty was not conflict with the humanitarian nature of medical work. They also deemed that, too lenient penalties of this crime had broken the internal harmony of Criminal Law, and violated the basic principles of law. The opponents believed that: although the statutory penalty for medical malpractice crime seemed lenient, the declared sentence was more severe than surrounding areas. And, too severe penalties would not only aggravate the shortage of Chinese medical personnel, but also deteriorate the unbalanced physician-patient relationship. So, they did not agree enhancing the penalty of medical malpractice crime. We propose to add disqualification to the punishment setting of medical malpractice crime, reform the health system more thoroughly. We also hope Chinese governments could encourage medicolegal research. And, from the viewpoint of risk management in health care, we emphasize the role of Medical Professional Liability Insurance system as a powerful tool to prevent medical malpractice.
尽管中国的医疗卫生体系已取得巨大进步，但艰巨的医疗任务与卫生资源不足之间的矛盾仍未得到根本解决。这一矛盾在医疗行业引发了大量法律问题。关于这些问题的文献通常发表在法律期刊上，临床医生不易获取。因此，我们向临床医生简要介绍医疗事故的法律责任，并详细阐述关于中国医疗事故罪刑罚设置的争论。考虑到医疗实践的复杂性和人道主义性质，立法者为医疗事故罪设定了相对宽松的刑罚制度。但“加重处罚”的支持者认为，从刑事法学角度来看，只有严重不负责任的医务人员才可能面临刑事处罚，所以重罚并不违背医疗工作的人道主义性质。他们还认为，该罪刑罚过于宽松破坏了刑法内部的协调性，违反了法律的基本原则。反对者则认为：虽然医疗事故罪的法定刑罚看似宽松，但宣告刑比周边地区更严厉。而且，过重的刑罚不仅会加剧中国医疗人员短缺的状况，还会使医患关系失衡的局面恶化。所以，他们不同意加重医疗事故罪的刑罚。我们建议在医疗事故罪的刑罚设置中增加资格刑，更彻底地改革卫生体系。我们还希望中国政府能鼓励法医学研究。并且，从医疗风险管理的角度出发，我们强调医疗职业责任保险制度作为预防医疗事故有力工具的作用。
