Right eye blind after treatment, my eight years of advocacy | story FM

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Before 2015, today's narrator Fan Xiaolei lived a very enviable life. In 2014, after receiving her PhD from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Fan returned to the mainland to work, and the following year, successfully obtained a teaching position as an assistant professor in the Department of Chinese at Peking University.

■ Photo / Fan Xiaolei

Working life in college was very simple, and Fan Xiaolei's first 31 years were smooth until September 2015. That year, Fan Xiaolei went to a third-class hospital for medical treatment because of a small black dot in the lower right corner of her right eye's vision. Unexpectedly, this incident completely changed her fate and involved her in an eight-year game with medical institutions, and this game has not ended.

-1-

A fate-changing black dot

I am Fan Xiaolei, a teacher in the Department of Chinese at Peking University, now 39 years old, and I am from Xingtai City, Hebei Province.

Around September 4, 2015, I felt a small black dot in the lower left corner of my right eye, and after two or three days the small black dot did not disappear, I went to Peking University Hospital on September 7, 2015 to see the ophthalmology, and the result was that the retina of my right eye was slightly detached, and the doctor made me have to be immediately transferred to a tertiary hospital to perform an open operation on the eye, the sooner the better, and push the detached retina back.

I was scared, I had never had a knife before.

When I checked my vision, my corrected visual acuity was 0.8. But I know that retinal detachment carries a risk of blindness, vision will slowly decline over time, and the earlier it is treated, the higher the cure rate.

■ Photo / The examination report issued by Fan Xiaolei when she went to the hospital for the first examination

On September 8, I went to a well-known tertiary hospital. The ophthalmologist who saw me was the oldest doctor in their hospital and was very authoritative in ophthalmology. He checked my eyes and said, "Your eyesight is normal, the retinal detachment is very slight, you don't need surgery, just an injection, but if you delay it, you need an operation."

The treatment he said is called vitreous gas injection, which injects an inert gas into the eyeball, allowing the gas to push the retina back, and the gas will be slowly absorbed by the body.

I was so happy to hear that I didn't have to have surgery, and I thought, "The treatment plan of the authoritative doctor is simple and painless."

But the authoritative doctor of the tertiary hospital immediately asked me to go to another hospital for injections, a private hospital not far from the tertiary hospital, and asked me to go the same day. The fact that I was sent to another hospital made me feel strange. Later, his assistant explained that it was because the tertiary hospitals did not have injection treatment products.

I told him that I had to go back and take a leave of absence from work, but I wanted to give myself time to think.

Walking out of the hospital, I called an ophthalmologist in Tianjin who was my high school alumnus. I asked him, "Why did this doctor ask me to go to another hospital for treatment and injections?" Should I go?"

The ophthalmologist in Tianjin told me, "The doctor you see is one of the best experts in our industry, and you can do whatever he asks you to do, absolutely no problem."

So I searched my phone for the name of the expert and found that he had indeed received various honors and recognitions. I was struggling, did I go to the little doctors in other hospitals, they did not have enough insight to give such a simple but painful treatment plan?

I also found out on the Internet that this authoritative doctor is the honorary president of this private hospital, so I was asked to go to the private hospital, probably because the authoritative doctor wanted to make more money, but as long as the treatment was safe and effective.

I went to an authoritative doctor out of trust in the safety and effectiveness of his treatment, and he only offered me the option to go to a private hospital for injections. So if I still want an authoritative doctor to treat me, I have no choice but to go to a private hospital.

If I had to go to another hospital and register again, I might wait two weeks or two months, and if I continued to wait, the cure rate would become lower.

After thinking about it again, I went to the private hospital that the authoritative doctor said was for injection treatment. The authoritative doctor is the honorary president and shareholder of the private hospital, and regularly visits the private hospital, and the private hospital also has a head of ophthalmology, who personally performs the injection treatment for me. The person in charge of the private hospital said at the time, "If you put this disease on hold to other doctors, you will definitely be operated on and earn more money, but the authoritative doctor is very good, and the treatment recommended to you only takes one month to recover, the retina will return to its original position, and you can live like a normal person."

I thought, this treatment is perfect!

During the operation, the head of the ophthalmology department opened my right eye with a clamp, covered with something similar to plastic film, and then felt the needle piercing my eye, but it didn't hurt, because the anesthesia was given before, and it ended in about three or five minutes.

Immediately after the surgery, I felt that my right eye changed from normal vision to a black fog in front of my eyes.

It's normal to have gas in my eyeballs that can cause vision loss. At that time, my vision dropped to the point that I could not see clearly in any line of the eye chart. Later, after testing, my corrected visual acuity in my right eye was 0.04, which is similar to being blind. It was like wearing glasses, but the lens was a frosted glass, and I had a sense of light, knowing that it was dark and dawning, but I couldn't see anything.

After about two weeks, my eyes became more and more sore, accompanied by a tingling pain that made me unable to sleep at night.

I went to the tertiary hospital again to see the authoritative doctor for follow-up, and this doctor said in a very relaxed tone, "Your eyes are absolutely fine, it will be fine soon, I'll take a look."

Saying that, he took out his high-powered glasses to look into my eyes, and suddenly blurted out in horror, "This gas is poisonous!" Gotta pull it out right away! Your eyes are bleeding!"

I was shocked, how can gas be toxic?

Then the authoritative doctor immediately called a car and took me to the private hospital. He told me in the car, "Your eyes are hanging."

I was blindfolded and didn't know why it was like this.

When I arrived at the private hospital, the authoritative doctor pumped out the gas that had hit my eyes before, and then pumped the air in, and he asked me to see him again in two days.

I still felt pain in my eyes, so painful that I bent down and picked up something with my arm a little harder, and I felt that my eyes hurt. If the arm is forced, the eye will hurt, and the eye is already very fragile.

The authoritative doctor is my primary doctor, and naturally I will not trust him again. I quickly took a taxi to Peking University People's Hospital and registered as soon as possible, and I could hang up any expert I could. I remember very clearly that the expert I hung up that day was Dr. Tao Yong.

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Angels or demons?

Some people may think that the name Tao Yong is somewhat familiar, because on January 20, 2020, the news of a violent medical injury incident appeared on the hot search, and Dr. Tao Yong is the hero of this incident. At that time, the family of a patient who was not satisfied with the treatment effect cut Tao Yong to serious injuries of the second degree, and he was able to get out of danger two weeks later.

Of course, when Fan Xiaolei found Dr. Tao Yong, none of this had happened, and Dr. Tao Yong at that time was a very young deputy chief physician of ophthalmology, not famous, but what he did and said that time made Fan Xiaolei remember it vividly until now.

Dr. Tao Yong saw the condition of my examination under my eyes and told me that he had been treated for so many years. I have never seen a case where the vision before treatment was 0.8 and I became blind after one injection. The treatment he gave was also an injection in the eye. I refused, I didn't believe him at all, the medical profession is like any other profession, you can't ask every doctor to be a saint.

Dr. Tao Yong said, "If you don't listen to the doctor today, you will regret it later." But I think this sentence is ironic, because I completely trusted the words of an authoritative doctor, and now I really regret it.

I thought again, what if what Tao Yong said was true? Am I giving up another chance to save my eyes?

I hesitated outside the examination room for about an hour or two, thinking that he didn't have to treat another doctor's bad patient, which would not do him any good. In fact, later, I went to many hospitals for consultation, but I was rejected, and many doctors heard that my disease was treated by the authoritative doctor, they felt that the authoritative doctor was too famous, and Tao Yong was the only doctor who treated me.

So later I found out that Tao Yong kept me at that time and was willing to treat me, which was really the greatest kindness within his ability.

Tao Yong gave me hormones, basically a dead horse as a live horse doctor, he said, "The methods that can be treated are all used for you, that's it."

I was completely desperate and said to Tao Yong, "I graduated with a doctorate and just started working."

Tao Yong told me two stories, the first was that he had a patient who was blinded by a bomb while working in a coal mine, and later opened a company as a boss. The second is that after another patient's eye injury, the treatment effect can reach about 0.5 and can live, but he gave up and relied on his parents to raise him.

Tao Yong said, "So, Fan Xiaolei, your life does not depend on your right eye."

But I didn't think about whether this statement was right or wrong, and how he comforted it didn't work.

■ Photo / Tao Yong's outpatient prescription to Fan Xiaolei

-3-

Where is the hope in life?

In fact, when I was blind in one eye, I had just joined Peking University, and at that time, the Chinese Department of Peking University had a rule of either promotion or departure, which meant that I needed to go through a 6-year teaching and research assessment, and if the assessment did not meet the standards, I would be dismissed, so the period when I suffered heavy physical and psychological injuries coincided with the assessment period.

Watching all the people around me work hard to teach and do academic research, and these tasks are very laborious, I feel pressured. Under the influence of excessive eye use, my eyes began to appear in various unexpected conditions.

After I lost sight in one eye, it became very awkward to see. Obviously both eyes can see, suddenly the eye lens in front of my right eye has become a frosted glass, every time I see my heart is very uncomfortable, it always reminds me that my right eye is invisible, my life has been like this ever since.

The doctor told me, "Your left eye will be more tired than the average person, and your vision life may be shorter than normal."

Indeed, for a later period, all kinds of strange conditions would occur in both eyes.

One day I was walking on the east gate of Beida, the sun was particularly strong, and while walking, I suddenly felt that there were white flowers in front of my eyes, and I couldn't see anything. I stopped and closed my eyes for a while, opened my eyes and found that I could see again, so I continued walking.

After losing sight in my right eye, the symptoms of transient blindness have been with me until now. Transient blindness is caused by insufficient blood supply, and there is a dark eye for about a second.

Once I gave a class to students at Peking University, and at 7 p.m., the class was about 100 people. I stood on the podium, and within half an hour my eyes were black and black. At that time, I was so nervous that I didn't dare to look at the students, so I could only look down at the lesson plan, and I was so scared that I thought it was probably over.

Students said they later said they fainted as they watched the teacher fall solidly on the podium. I still have a big bag on the left side of my head that I fell out of at that time.

The student immediately called the emergency department and sent me to the hospital for examination, and the doctor said that it was probably because I was weak and frightened, because I fainted in fear.

Moreover, my left side of the head is particularly sore because I mainly work with my left eye, which makes my left side of the head particularly tired. So in order to reduce fatigue, I don't work after seven or eight o'clock at night, because there is no natural light at that time, and the lights have strobes, which is not good for the eyes, so I sleep earlier at night, but almost every night I wake up three or five times in the middle of the night.

I vividly remember waking up every night and going to the bathroom symbolically to see if the gap in the bathroom wall tile could be seen with my right eye. But not much progress is made every day.

And when I wake up in the morning and open my eyes, I think, great, my left eye can still see today.

But I didn't make a fuss at the time, I was a more rational person. So many ophthalmologists have told me that under normal circumstances, your treatment is risk-free and there will be no problems. I have to figure out what the truth of this matter really is.

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Find the truth

After that, in October and November 2015, Fan Xiaolei went to a number of third-class hospitals for examination, and the Xiyuan Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences and Union Medical College Hospital diagnosed her right eye as "toxic retinopathy", Tongren Hospital diagnosed her as "ischemic right optic neuropathy after C3F8 intraocular injection of right retinal detachment", and Peking University People's Hospital diagnosed her as "acute gas-induced toxic retinopathy in the right eye". In other words, the results of the hospital's examination all pointed to Fan Xiaolei's blindness in the right eye being caused by toxic gas.

After diagnosis, the gas injected into Fan Xiaolei's right eye is "octafluoropropane", which is actually often used in medical treatment, and medical octafluoropropane is actually not harmful to the human body and will be naturally absorbed by the body.

So, what exactly is the toxic substance injected into Fan Xiaolei's right eye? Why did it appear in the hospital and be injected into Fan Xiaolei's right eye?

■ Photo / Fan Xiaolei's diagnosis certificate

There have been so many authoritative tertiary hospitals that have issued me the same diagnostic certificate, saying that there is a problem with the product used by the hospital, so I decided to collect evidence, but it was a long process.

The first thing I suspected was that there was something wrong with the manufacturer of this product, producing substandard medical products.

I went to the private hospital to ask the director of the gas injection to ask for a certificate, and I wanted to know which manufacturer produced the gas injection. The director of the private hospital hesitated, but still issued me a certificate with information about the production of such and such a manufacturer.

I searched the Internet following his handwritten testimony. As a result, I found that this producer can only produce industrial products. And on its webpage it is written that its octafluoropropane is a shielding gas for electrical welding.

I checked the difference between industrial products and medical supplies of octafluoropropane, under the national standard, industrial octafluoropropane is allowed to contain the highly toxic substance hydrogen fluoride. Hydrogen fluoride is a highly toxic substance that is strongly corrosive. Medical octafluoropropane is not allowed to contain any toxic substances, which is the difference between industrial products and medical products octafluoropropane.

The manufacturer of my eye injection octafluoropropane industrial product issued a factory test report of this bottle of the product, stating that they did not contain more than 5% hydrogen fluoride, that is, it must contain hydrogen fluoride, a highly toxic substance.

■ Figure / Product factory inspection report issued by the manufacturer

After Fan Xiaolei's investigation, she found that what was injected into her right eye was not an unqualified medical gas, but itself an industrial gas, because the manufacturer of octafluoropropane used in private hospitals was a manufacturer of industrial gases, and there was no qualification to produce medical gases, so Fan Xiaolei began to suspect that it was the private hospital that purchased industrial gases in violation of regulations.

She couldn't believe her guess at first, because it was so risky that she thought something might be wrong somewhere else.

But in March 2016, Fan Xiaolei went to the Haidian Food and Drug Administration to report the use of industrial products to inject the human body by a private hospital, and she was shocked by the results of the Haidian Food and Drug Administration, the octafluoropropane used in this private hospital was indeed a product that had not been registered with the State Food and Drug Administration, and it was indeed an industrial product.

So behind this shocking truth, why are private hospitals taking huge risks injecting industrial gas into patients?

I couldn't believe this at all, and the case staff of the Haidian Food and Drug Administration at that time couldn't believe it, and all the doctors who saw me said that there could never be such a terrible thing.

I have guessed why private hospitals use industrial gases, according to my investigation, the price of industrial goods for the same chemical is 1 / 50 of the price of medical supplies. But he charged me for my treatment, and the profit was very high.

I went to a private hospital at least three times, all for the purpose of obtaining evidence. Of course, I showed that I wanted to sue the manufacturer together with the hospital, so I asked the person in charge of the private hospital, "Why don't you use a medical brand of octafluoropropane?" Unexpectedly, their investors inadvertently said, "Because medical treatment is expensive, we don't need it." When he said this, I was particularly surprised, I didn't expect him to be able to admit it so frankly.

Anyone can make mistakes, I allow it, but I wouldn't think that a doctor must operate on a patient with a kitchen knife.

I have to be very calm, the evidence is not taken, I will not lose my temper.

The doctor who performs the treatment at the head of the ophthalmology department at a private hospital said, "I have been using this product since 07."

What he meant was that there had never been an accident, but I speculated that industrial products used in people were not 100% accidents, because in the cases I later investigated, I found that some hospitals had been punished for using industrial oxygen instead of medical oxygen to treat patients, and in these cases, not all patients were in trouble, so I guessed that private hospitals were gambling.

Later, the Haidian Food and Drug Administration found out that the process of purchasing octafluoropropane by private hospitals actually went through two sellers, rather than directly purchasing it from industrial gas manufacturers. Neither of these two sellers has a registration certificate for medical products. However, Article 45 of the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Medical Devices stipulates that medical device trading enterprises and user units shall purchase medical devices from legally qualified medical devices and production and trading enterprises. When purchasing, the supplier's qualifications and the qualification documents of the medical device shall be checked.

Fan Xiaolei's first feeling at the time was very angry, she believed that if the hospital's purchase process followed legal procedures, she should not be blind in her right eye.

Fan Xiaolei thought of the authoritative doctor of the tertiary hospital where he was originally arranged, that is, the honorary president of this private hospital, and she wanted to go to the authoritative doctor to ask if he knew all this.

I was very angry and went to ask the authoritative doctor for an explanation.

Recorded evidence:

Authoritative doctor: I treated you with a piece of sincerity, and finally achieved this result. I don't know, I can swear to God.

Fan Xiaolei's mother: You brought us to a private hospital and used industrial gas!

Authoritative doctor: We swear by heaven.

Fan Xiaolei's mother: We dare, do you dare?

Authoritative doctor: You have been studying for six years for a doctorate and have not even read your conscience. I'm not at all at a loss.

In the process of Fan Xiaolei asking the authoritative doctor of the third-class hospital for explanation, the authoritative doctor denied his fault in the entire treatment process, he meant that he did not know about this matter, and he was also out of good intentions.

In fact, during that time, Fan Xiaolei ran many institutions and recorded a lot of recording evidence documents, each of which lasted for an hour or two, and the process of sorting out the recording was very torturous for Fan Xiaolei, she had to review her blindness in her right eye over and over again, but no one apologized to her for this, and she didn't know who was ultimately responsible for it.

After sorting out the evidence, Fan Xiaolei met her later representative, legal person Zhuo Xiaoqin, through a colleague. Zhuo Xiaoqin is a retired teacher from China University of Political Science and Law, specializing in medical cases. After taking over the case and seeing the evidence, he felt that the facts of Fan Xiaolei's case were very simple and the evidence was sufficient, predicting that this was a very good lawsuit.

In August 2018, I went to the Haidian court to sue for civil damages, taking the tertiary hospital, private hospital, two industrial product distributors and an industrial product manufacturer related to the incident to court.

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Three and a half long years

Zhuo Xiaoqin is a well-known medical lawyer I have known since I was a child, and he has represented many very famous cases, such as "death of angels" as a murder case, "loss of eyeballs", and "the death of Professor Wang Jianguo's wife at Peking University Hospital at Peking University".

When Mr. Zhuo took over my case, he said that the consequences of this case were not the most serious results of the medical cases he encountered, the most serious was death or lifelong paralysis, and the disability level of blindness in one eye was about 7~8.

However, the nature of this case was the worst of any medical case he had encountered, because in most cases, the doctor performed surgery to cause the patient's death from pulmonary embolism or lifelong paraplegia, which was caused by the doctor's carelessness. However, doctors injecting patients with industrial products has a subjective and intentional tendency, which is extremely rare in medical cases. Therefore, Mr. Zhuo believes that my case applies to punitive damages under Article 47 of the Tort Liability Law.

Article 47 of the Tort Liability Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that if a product is produced or sold knowing that it is defective, causing the death of another person or serious damage to health, the infringed party has the right to request corresponding punitive damages. In other words, as long as the court recognizes that the defendant violated this law, it means that the defendant's injury to Fan Xiaolei has subjective intention, and it is a knowingly committed crime. In addition to the basic damages, the defendant is also required to pay certain punitive damages to the victim.

In her initial claim, Fan Xiaolei requested that the defendant be awarded joint and several damages of 50,000 yuan, including medical expenses, nutrition expenses, disability compensation and other expenses, and that the defendant pay her punitive damages of 150,000 yuan.

This amount of compensation is only a temporary lawsuit request before the disability evaluation, and according to the process, the hospital should first be judicially determined that there was indeed medical negligence, and then the disability evaluation should be carried out. Because if the medical injury assessment is not responsible, there is no need to bring a disability assessment. Fan Xiaolei and her agent originally planned to change the lawsuit according to the results of the disability evaluation after the results of the disability appraisal came out.

After determining this, Fan Xiaolei's medical litigation case was opened in August 2016 at the Haidian District People's Court in Beijing, and she felt tormented by a three-and-a-half-year trial that awaited her.

My case has 5 defendants, which tends to be long for each of our court sessions.

Since the August 2016 indictment, there have been at least seven court sessions, roughly once or twice a year.

The atmosphere in each court session was very tense and depressing, and the statements of the manufacturers and sellers of the products in court were relatively mild, but the people in the private hospital spoke very reasonably, feeling that they were not at fault.

The private hospital directly said in court that "the plaintiff's patient's corrected visual acuity was less than 0.1 before treatment", but the medical records before treatment clearly stated that the corrected visual acuity of both eyes was 0.8.

The private hospitals argued in court that they had been deceived by the qualifications of industrial sellers and accidentally purchased industrial goods.

However, all the qualifications provided by industrial sellers to private hospitals prove that they are a seller of industrial goods and hazardous chemicals, and the product packaging can show that it is an industrial product.

Later, the private hospital really couldn't come up with any evidence, feeling that it was hard to use evidence to prove that they were not at fault.

The private hospital later provided a recording of their conversation with the industrial vendor in court, intending to prove that the distributor of industrial products sold industrial octafluoropropane to them as a medical product, and that the seller should knowingly bear responsibility.

Recorded evidence:

Seller in charge: If you go to the regular gas, you will definitely have to increase the price.

Person in charge of a private hospital: This certificate is not complete, and many things are difficult to handle.

Head of Seller: Yes.

The person in charge of the private hospital: If there is no accident, it is okay, as soon as it happens, it will be a thing.

The person in charge of the private hospital: There is no medical gas for this.

Seller Manager: Yes, we don't have medical gas.

The recording doesn't actually prove anything good for the hospital. The highlight of the recording is the last sentence, "We didn't use medical gas." There are also more earlier sellers who said, "If you go to the regular gas, you will definitely have to increase the price." These two sentences prove my speculation, that is, hospitals do not use medical gas in order to save costs, and they know that this is not medical gas in itself, but also subjective intention.

This recording proved to me that the private hospitals may have given up a little, and they knew that they would be held liable, so they wanted to use this recording to prove that the seller was also knowingly guilty, so they tried to make the industrial product seller also jointly and severally liable.

In the end, the court found that the seller of industrial products did not have the qualification to sell either medical octafluoropropane or industrial octafluoropropane.

What makes me feel ironic is that in 2018, during the court trial, I said in court that the tertiary hospital should also apologize to me, and then the agent of the tertiary hospital shouted out in court, "Who are you, why should I apologize to you?"

On the contrary, the manufacturer of the seller of industrial goods treated me very well, and the manufacturer was the only one who said at the trial, "We deeply sympathize with the plaintiff's patient for this misfortune."

In the three-and-a-half-year trial, the five defendants have actually been sticking to their original claims.

The private hospital still believes that their actions are not at fault, and although they admit to using industrial products for injections, they believe that the disability of Fan Xiaolei's right eye is caused by their own illness, so they are not liable for any compensation.

The tertiary hospitals believed that the authoritative doctors arranged Fan Xiaolei to the private hospital where they were treated out of good intentions, not for profit, and they were not at fault.

The two sellers of industrial products believed that they did sell the octafluoropropane involved in the case, but there was no direct causal relationship between their sale and the plaintiff's disability, and their representative said in court, "If the hospital insists on using kitchen knives for surgery, the responsibility cannot be placed on the person selling kitchen knives."

Industrial manufacturers believe that they can indeed only produce industrial products, and that the outsourcing of octafluoropropane contains clear instructions that it is an industrial product, so it is the private hospital that knowingly uses the product on patients, which has nothing to do with them.

Therefore, none of the five defendants admitted that they were at fault and should bear some responsibility.

This made Fan Xiaolei's heart feel very uncomfortable, she should not lose her right eye so unclearly, in the process of several court sessions, every time she heard several defendants shirk each other's responsibility, she felt like her heart was pressed by a big rock, which overwhelmed her.

Whenever I go through such a trial, I don't want to get out of bed the next morning, because once I get up and face the world, I will go into depression, which will last for at least a week after the trial.

My classmates, teachers and family described my temperament as having changed drastically. I used to be a very quiet and submissive person, but suddenly I became prone to tantrums, especially with my family.

I remember one morning, my mother cooked me such a delicious meal, so I dropped my chopsticks and didn't eat it, and I lost my temper with my mother and said, "Why am I so uncomfortable, and you still cook me such a bad meal?" Don't you want me to live?" It scared everyone in my family. But what I really wanted to vent was the doctors, and they weren't in front of me. I am very ashamed of my family.

In fact, when the court opened, I met many family members of medical malpractice cases. I spoke to victims of other malpractice cases or victims' families, and they all mentioned similar reactions.

While conducting judicial proceedings, my more important task is to pass the assessment of scientific research teaching, and only by passing can I keep this job.

Only then did I realize that once I started writing papers and reading literature, I could forget all the unhappy things, so I especially understood the saying - the things you love can save your life.

If I didn't have something I really love at that time, I would always be immersed in all kinds of pain.

After three years of pressure from repeated court sessions, Fan Xiaolei's case finally went to trial for the last time on December 18, 2019.

Fan Xiaolei expects that the private hospital will be judged to be fully responsible, and this appraisal opinion is very important to the final judgment of this case, and it is the key evidence for the people's court to hear the medical damage liability dispute case, and to a certain extent, determine the amount of compensation that Fan Xiaolei can get, and at the last trial, the first thing to discuss is the appraisal opinion of medical fault.

This was the only appearance requested by the medical examiner since the forensic examination.

The medical examiner's identification found that my right eye was disabled, mainly due to the use of non-compliant medical supplies in private hospitals, and secondary to the natural progression of my disease, that is, vision loss caused by retinal detachment of the primary disease.

My agent and I disagree with the forensic doctor's conclusion, which is inconsistent with the conclusion of the top doctors of several tertiary hospitals.

The former director of the ophthalmology department of the Third Hospital of Beijing Medical University said after reading my medical records that according to my condition at the time of treatment, the vision after treatment would not be reduced at all. The diagnosis of Tongren Hospital and Union Medical College Hospital is also "toxic retinopathy". Where does the alleged toxicity come from? It's the gas that came from injecting me.

So my agent and I believe that the disability in my right eye was entirely due to the toxic industrial products used in private hospitals.

My agent, Mr. Zhuo, asked the forensic doctor of the forensic institution in court, "Why is your forensic result different from that of a top ophthalmologist doctor?" On what basis?"

The medical examiner said, "My identification is independent, retinal detachment can cause vision loss in patients, and the literature is endless."

This conclusion must actually be based on literature, but the forensic doctor did not give any specific documentary basis. I don't know why the forensic doctor only gave an identification conclusion, but did not give any scientific basis for the literature.

The forensic examination is very important, it directly determines how to determine the fault responsibility of private hospitals. If they were not fully responsible, it would reduce the liability of the private hospital, so we submitted an application to the court at the time to re-evaluate the judicial fault.

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Verdict

At the same time, at this trial, Fan Xiaolei submitted an application for medical negligence evaluation and subsequent disability evaluation. According to Fan Xiaolei's expectations, after the trial, she will first receive a letter from the court agreeing to the disability evaluation, and a notice to conduct another medical negligence evaluation.

However, after waiting for 4 months, Fan Xiaolei directly waited for the verdict.

This means that Fan Xiaolei's case is closed, and the verdict this time is likely to directly refer to and adopt the medical evaluation recommendations that she did not approve before.

Fan Xiaolei's agent Zhuo Xiaoqin was also surprised after learning about this matter, and he, like Fan Xiaolei, did not expect the court to close the case so quickly. They are still waiting for another trial.

After opening the verdict with a heavy heart, Fan Xiaolei saw the verdict.

The court held that the tertiary hospital involved in the case was not at fault for the medical acts carried out by Fan Xiaolei, so it was not liable. The industrial gas manufacturer involved in the case has obtained the production qualification and business qualification of octafluoropropane, and according to Article 38 of the Regulations on the Safety Management of Hazardous Chemicals, there is no restriction on the purchase of general hazardous chemicals, so the manufacturer is not at fault for the sale of octafluoropropane and is not liable.

The medical behavior of the private hospital involved in the case constituted an infringement of Fan Xiaolei's right to life and health, and the private hospital should bear full responsibility for the consequences of Fan Xiaolei's damage. The two sellers of industrial products were also at fault for selling octafluoropropane gas without obtaining a business license, and there was also a causal relationship with Fan Xiaolei's damage results, so the two sellers should bear joint and several liability.

However, even if the private hospital was sentenced to full responsibility, this judgment only sentenced the private hospital to compensate Fan Xiaolei for nutrition expenses plus spiritual comfort money of 34,000 yuan, disability compensation, etc. This time does not make a judgment, and needs to be sued in another case, although the judgment leaves the right to sue in another case to Fan Xiaolei, but this also means that Fan Xiaolei needs to spend longer and more energy to defend her rights. The current compensation figure is far from Fan Xiaolei's expectations.

In the subsequent prosecution of another case, Fan Xiaolei will conduct disability appraisal, three-stage assessment and disability assistive device identification, and now Fan Xiaolei and her agent have a rough prediction that Fan Xiaolei's disability may be set at about level seven.

The Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Personal Injury Compensation Cases promulgated by the Supreme People's Court contains detailed provisions on the items and standards of personal injury compensation, and according to the prescribed formula, the basic compensation for grade 7 disability will probably be more than 600,000 yuan, of course, this result has yet to be determined.

In the judgment, what Fan Xiaolei most minded was not these, but the "punitive damages" she claimed, and the court did not support it.

The punitive damages ordinance states that "knowing that the product is defective, it is still manufactured and sold causing death or serious damage to the health of others." The key word here is "sales". However, I have consulted many people in the legal profession who believe that patients pay money when they go to the hospital for treatment, and that patients buy medical services and medical products from the hospital, which is a sales act.

The failure to identify "punitive damages" greatly reduces the liability of private hospitals.

Our country's "punitive damages" are well stipulated to punish hospitals for knowingly committing crimes, but punitive damages are rarely used in medical cases in Beijing.

After seeing this result, I was desperate, and I was about to pay more to defend my rights in this case.

34,000 yuan is not even enough for my medical expenses, just a shot of special effect medicine is 300 yuan, so far I may have spent more than 50,000 yuan, not to mention the cost of acupuncture. Together with the money spent on judicial proceedings, it is probably hundreds of thousands.

Since the consequences of treating blind patients with industrial products and medical products are the same, and industrial products are a few tenths of the price of medical products, hospitals are likely to continue to use industrial products when they see that they do not need to bear "punitive damages".

As a teacher at Peking University, I have a strong ability to collect evidence, and have access to legal or medical contacts, even if it is so difficult for me to defend my rights, my lawsuit has not ended for 8 years, so how should ordinary people solve the same incident if they encounter the same incident?

Of course, what makes me feel most fortunate over the years is that I finally passed the long-term employment assessment of Peking University and was selected as a national young talent.

After I did all this, I realized that there was truth in the original sentence that Tao Yong told me 15 years that "your life does not depend on your right eye".

■ Photo / Dr. Tao Yong's message to Fan Xiaolei

In the afternoon after I got the verdict, when I was having dinner with a friend, I suddenly swiped my mobile phone and saw that "Dr. Tao Yong of Chaoyang Hospital was cut, it was a bloody medical incident."

I was shocked that the doctor who had done his best to save me from being slashed, how would he save people in the future?

Ironically, I found out last year that the private hospital that injected me with toxic gas had actually been upgraded to a designated medical insurance institution, and the doctor who injected me with industrial products had been upgraded to the vice president of another, more well-known private hospital.

Today, I still have a fear of going to the hospital, and it feels like a drumming trick.

-7-

There is no end in sight to the road to rights protection

In January 2020, I filed my appeal and also received another courier from the court, which was from a private hospital. The private hospital still believes that the blindness in my right eye is caused by the disease of my retinal detachment and has nothing to do with their medical practices, so they do not want to take any responsibility.

Therefore, I have not received any compensation from the private hospital until now, and I have not received any notice from the court since.

At first, I thought it was just a civil case, but then I learned from professors from Peking University Law School and well-known criminal lawyer that this case was a criminal case, and that the private hospital's behavior violated Article 145 of the Criminal Law, the crime of selling medical equipment that did not meet the standards, so I decided to file a criminal charge against the private hospital. Compensation is secondary, and my claim now is that the hospital bear criminal liability.

Before and after I lost sight in my right eye, there was no change in appearance, but I saw the world completely different from before.

■ Photo / Fan Xiaolei went to the police station for criminal prosecution

Although medical malpractice cases account for a small proportion of the entire civil case, it involves the nerves of each and every one of us, because it concerns the rights and interests of each of us.

In fact, this is not Fan Xiaolei's first interview, in the comment area of some previous interviews, many people shared their medical dispute rights protection stories, and Fan Xiaolei's story was displayed in front of everyone's eyes, which seemed to provide a platform for communication and venting.

According to the 2022 National Medical Damage Liability Dispute Case Big Data Report, in the second-instance medical injury liability dispute cases in 2022, the patient's appeal cases accounted for 46.10%, and the focus of disputes in the second instance was mainly focused on the fault and cause of the doctor's diagnosis and treatment behavior, compensation items and calculation standards, and appraisal opinion objections, accounting for a total of 81.34%.

Indeed, because our country has been increasing the popularization of the law, in recent years, there have been many litigants like Fan Xiaolei, who have a very strong sense of law and rights protection, and more and more litigants have questioned the legality of legal procedures, which has exposed many dilemmas.

Because medical cases are first medical problems, followed by legal issues, and are very professional, many ordinary people cannot make accurate judgments on whether medical acts are at fault and causation. Even many lawyers and judges with non-medical backgrounds cannot accurately judge the facts, so there are many disputes and dissatisfaction in the trial of medical dispute cases.

We may, perhaps, still have a long way to go.

- Both the cover image and the unattributed image are from the narrator

 Staff 

Narrator: | Fan Xiaolei

Producer | Zhao Zhenyi

Streamer | @寇爱哲

Copywriting | Zhao Zhenyi

Sound Design | Mulberry spring

Operations | Yoyo

 BGM List 

01.Story FM Theme Piano version - Mulberry Spring (opening song)

02. The Past Has Not Passed - Mulberry Spring

03. Popular science music - Mulberry spring

04. Those plots buried in memory, but cleaned up by life - Sangquan

Produced by|Sound Story Media "Story FM"

Copyright statement: The content produced by Sound Story Media shall not be copied and reproduced without authorization, otherwise legal responsibility will be pursued.

 Story FM 

Story FM is a voice show narrated by witnesses