Health officials overseeing the city of Wuhan in China have been forced to stop HIV clinics from uploading results to a new digital system for test sharing after two HIV positive patients were refused hospital treatment.
One man was turned away from a dental hospital in the city on 30 November, and another with cold symptoms was rejected from a general hospital on 1 December. In both instances staff told the men that they had seen their positive HIV status in an interhospital test system and were unable to treat people with HIV, said local reports verified by The BMJ.1
These incidents highlight the ongoing problem of medical discrimination in China and show how this is complicating a major government effort to curb costs and overtreatment by making hospitals share information such as x ray imaging and blood test results.
The orders to HIV clinics to stop uploading results were issued on 4 December as verbal instructions from Hubei province health officials, The BMJ has learnt. Anti-discrimination advocates welcomed the swift response but said that it failed to deal with broader concerns about test sharing …
