Written by | Qiu Xiao Haomiao
At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, Ai Fen, director of the emergency department of Wuhan Central Hospital, and the "those things" of the private hospital giant Aier Ophthalmology once again set off waves of network public opinion.
At the end of 2020, Ai Fen posted on Weibo to bring this doctor-patient dispute into the public eye, and the popularity of this doctor-patient dispute that lasted for more than a year should be no less than the previous Tesla female car owner". Although the female doctor Ai Fen did not block the door and pull the banner, she refused to do medical identification, and the rights protection practice of creating public opinion and pressure was also regarded by many professionals as a "medical disturbance".
Before the Chinese New Year's Eve of the Year of the Tiger, an internal letter from Chen Bang, chairman of Aier Ophthalmology, to all employees flowed out. In the letter, Chen Bang highlighted the medical dispute between Wuhan Aier and "a patient". The discerning people knew that this patient was Nonefinancial.
On the one hand, Chen Bang reflected on Aier's "neglected detailed control" in the process of rapid development, "left many problems" and "barely scored 70 points at most", and said that from now on, Aier will fully embrace social supervision, promote self-innovation, and will set up specialized agencies to continue to promote medical and operational management standards and further improve the quality of medical services.
On the other hand, he expressed the confusion brought about by the public opinion - "If you do not follow medical identification, do not follow legal procedures, do not accept any facts that are inconsistent with his personal identification, but implement a long-term "public opinion trial" through social media, which no hospital or enterprise can afford." ”
Although the dispute between Aier Ophthalmology and female doctor Ai Fen has not yet been conclusive, we believe that authoritative medical appraisal and judicial adjudication will eventually give public opinion, as well as the majority of patients and medical institutions an exemplary and fair answer.
Surgical Rashomon: Why did AiFen's "doctor" become a "medical trouble"?
In this internal letter from Chen Bang, chairman of Aier Ophthalmology, he reviewed the original intention of entrepreneurship and elaborated on the arduous challenges and confusions brought about by the epidemic and public opinion in recent years. The key points express the attitude and reflection on the "Effin Incident".
Let's first briefly sort out the events:
In May 2020, Ai Fen had a cataract in his right eye and underwent an intraocular lens implant surgery in the Aier Ophthalmology Department, the operation was successful, and a few months later, Dr. Ai Fen performed surgery in his hospital, but the operation was not good, resulting in near blindness in the right eye. Dr. Ai Fen believes that the second operation was not good because when he did the first operation in Aier Ophthalmology, the lesions under his own fundus were not found in time.
Therefore, she used her identity as a public figure to exert huge public pressure on Aier Ophthalmology to carry out rights protection. Judging from the current momentum of public opinion, Dr. Ai Fen occupies an overwhelming advantage. But much of this doesn't come from people judging the facts and the truth.
After all, the strong medical professional barriers of ophthalmology determine the limited participation ability of the vast number of melon-eating people in this event. More regrettably, in this medical dispute, as a doctor and also a patient, Ai Fen has not yet passed the normal legal procedures, applied for authoritative medical appraisals, and defended his rights according to law, but chose to use his influence and traffic to fight a war of words with Aier on the Internet. The power of the profession, the power of the law, is grossly marginalized. The doubts and consequences of Aifen's series of behaviors have been clearly and rigorously sorted out by lawyer Song Chunlei in the article "How Aifen changed from "doctor" to "medical trouble", which made many Aifen's supporters return to rationality and change their positions. Unfortunately, compared with Ai Fen's overwhelming public opinion output, there are still too few people who have access to this article.
However, Aier Ophthalmology has been actively communicating and frankly expressing its position, and is willing to work with Aifen to carry out medical malpractice technical appraisal to clarify responsibilities and resolve this dispute. In this "reflection letter" from Chen Bang, chairman of Aier Ophthalmology, we see the courage of this domestic private hospital giant enterprise with the courage to take responsibility and the determination to rectify itself. How to face social supervision and innovative norms has become a major issue facing the medical industry, including Aier. It should be said realistically that the helmsman of this ophthalmic giant ship shows the pattern and responsibility that the industry boss should have.
Caught in the whirlpool of public opinion, Aier Ophthalmology is not a "Putian Hospital"
In the process of Dr. Aifen's online rights protection, a number of surgical kickback lists of Suqian Aier Eye Hospital were exposed on her Weibo, causing public concern. In the face of doubts and criticisms, the hospital involved responded quickly: the online information has been rectified in accordance with relevant requirements, the offending employees have been seriously dealt with, and the management team has been replaced.
Objectively speaking, as a private enterprise for profit, Aier Ophthalmology cannot be flawless in its own development process, and problems not only need criticism, but also need severe regulatory penalties. However, every hospital also has a doctor-patient relationship that is difficult to deal with, large or small, which is tortuous and complex, and I believe that in recent years, many medical-related public opinion reversal incidents have made everyone deeply understand.
In the past 20 years, Aier Ophthalmology has closely followed the road of China's medical system reform, actively explored the development path of specialized hospitals, created a development model of ophthalmology medical treatment suitable for China's national conditions, and established a systematic management ideology and theoretical system of specialized chain hospitals. At the same time, it has driven the overall development of the upstream and downstream ecological sectors of ophthalmology, accumulated a good reputation of patients and the industry with excellent medical technology and intimate diagnosis and treatment services, won wide patient recognition, government trust, social attention and investor favor, and created an exemplary and representative successful sample of China's medical industry.
Under the leadership of the sustainable development of the "cross-subsidy" public welfare model, Aier Ophthalmology, while providing patients with higher quality ophthalmic medical services, actively unites forces from all walks of life to devote itself to public welfare, effectively helps poor eye disease patients, popularizes the knowledge of grass-roots eye health education, and truly implements the national "precision poverty alleviation" policy in the ophthalmic medical industry. By the end of 2021, the total public welfare expenditure will exceed 1 billion yuan, helping hundreds of thousands of poor eye patients around the world to see the light again, and covering more than 190 million people with eye health free clinics and science education.
In 2009, as one of the first 28 listed companies in mainland China, Aier Ophthalmology landed on the ChiNext board, and in the past 12 years, the market value has soared, from the initial 6.9 billion yuan to the 100 billion and 100 billion mark, once reaching a historical high of more than 360 billion yuan. In 2017, Aier Ophthalmology acquired Bavaria Ophthalmology, the largest chain of ophthalmology listing institutions in Europe, marking the first export of modern medical services from the mainland to the European market.
There is no doubt that Aier Ophthalmology has achieved a leading position in the "GoldenEye" quality track. However, the name is all over the world, and the slander is also with it. In 2019, the Internet medical platform "Spring Rain Doctor" released a "Putian Department" private hospital list revealed, including Aier Ophthalmology, Aier Ophthalmology was inexplicably put on the hat of "Putian Department". In fact, people with a little common sense can judge that as an authentic Xiang enterprise, Aier Ophthalmology, which has a high level of medical standards and compliance, is incompatible with the "Putian" hospital, otherwise how can the listing pass the review of the securities regulatory department? How do M&A qualify for European market access?
The growth of Aier Ophthalmology has been very stable, and the revenue growth rate in the past 10 years has not been lower than 20%, even under the severe test of the epidemic in 2020, it has maintained a growth rate of 19.2%. According to the third quarter report of Aier Ophthalmology in 2021, the operating income in the first three quarters of 2021 was 11.596 billion yuan, an increase of 35.28% year-on-year (compared with the same period last year). With the support of the management model of hierarchical chain eye hospitals and the partner plan of the ophthalmic medical service industry, coupled with the significant benefits of the "14th Five-Year Plan" National Eye Health Plan (2021-2025), this growth momentum is expected to continue.
Network cases are both defeated and injured, and enterprises need rational and good-faith social supervision
The information in the field of public opinion is true or false, complex and changeable, and most of it cannot become an effective node in the evidence chain.
The smooth flow of public opinion is indeed conducive to the progress of the rule of law, but using netizens who do not know the whole picture of the facts to incite public opinion on the Internet can only push the truth and results farther and farther away and tear apart society.
The "roof rights protection" incident of Tesla female car owners, which was listed by the China Consumer Association as the first of the "Top Ten Consumer Rights Protection Public Opinion Hotspots in 2021", has not yet been completed. Recently, Tesla has sued the female car owner involved, claiming 5 million yuan in damage to the right to reputation, and the incident is becoming more and more magical.
Comparing the two, it can be found that the Aier Ophthalmology "Aifen Rights Protection" incident and the Tesla female owner rights protection incident also have similarities. For example, Ai Fen questioned the technical level of Aier Ophthalmology, the female car owner involved did not trust Tesla's background data, Ai Fen used Weibo to exert pressure on Aier Ophthalmology, the female owner involved contacted the media to shoot the mediation scene, pulled a banner to climb the roof of the car to write Weibo.......
Compared with the tough style of Tesla's anti-sue against the female owner and claim for the loss of 5 million yuan in the right to reputation, Aier Ophthalmology's attitude towards Aifen is obviously restrained, gentle and sincere. Combined with Chen Bang's internal letter, this is not only related to the special status of ai fen, the rights defender.
"Patient-centered, warm as the link, with the law as the criterion, seeking truth from facts to solve the problems that arise in the development; for social supervision, once the relevant investigation is confirmed to be true, it will be dealt with immediately, respond in a timely manner, rectify quickly, and never shirk it." In Chen Bang's internal letter, Aier's sincere statement and pragmatic measures on the Aifen incident also reflected the private hospital's corporate culture and sense of social responsibility of safeguarding the interests of patients first.
In fact, doctor-patient disputes are a common occurrence in the medical industry, and neither public nor private hospitals can prevent them.
For Aier Ophthalmology, although a relatively mature commercial service model has been formed, due to the high professional technical content of ophthalmic surgery, most of the surgeries are more difficult, it is difficult to ensure that each operation is risk-free, and for some complex conditions, it may also require multiple examinations to find out.
Therefore, the determination of medical malpractice should be determined by the medical appraisal committee or the court appraisal agency, and the protection of rights that deviates from the legitimate channels will damage the normal medical order and harmonious medical environment in the mainland.
In recent years, the Internet has become a new channel for social supervision, and enterprises involved in disputes need to improve their own governance structures, strengthen their corporate social responsibility awareness and ability to assume social responsibility. At the same time, what we need is to carry out rational and good-faith criticism and supervision on the basis of the rule of law, online violence cannot solve the problem from the root, and only by resolving disputes in accordance with laws and regulations can it help avoid greater harm on both sides.
Qiu Xiao, a senior financial media person, has served as a reporter and editor of the Southern Financial Herald of Xinhua News Agency, a financial reporter of the Economic News Center of Xiaoxiang Morning News, a deputy director of the Financial And Economic Center of Sanxiang Metropolis Daily, a deputy director of the Editorial Department of Hunan Channel of XinhuaNet, and a deputy editor-in-chief of Sina Hunan, with many years of experience in mainstream media financial operations, and has won the Hunan Provincial News Award for many times.