China Purges Xi’an Communist Official After Brutal Lockdown Measures Deny Residents Lifesaving Medical Care

Chinese Communist Party authorities announced on Tuesday that they had dismissed an official formerly in charge of a medical center in central China’s Xi’an city for his alleged contribution to an overly strict Chinese coronavirus lockdown in Xi’an this year, which denied people medical care at local clinics and ignited public outrage, the Global Times reported.

“The disciplinary organ of Xi’an, Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, announced on Tuesday that Li Qiang, former head of the Xi’an Medical Emergency Center, has been removed his from post and expelled from the Communist Party of China for afflicting a great negative impact on local COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] prevention and control efforts, and putting public safety at great risk,” the Chinese state-run newspaper reported on July 12.

“During the critical period of the epidemic prevention and control in Xi’an, Li’s work was seriously irresponsible, triggering several major incidents that sparked negative public opinion online and caused a bad social impact,” the announcement read.

Various clinics and hospitals across Xi’an denied medical treatment to some local residents from about December 2021 to January 2022 during a weeks-long Chinese coronavirus lockdown in the city. The medical facilities refused to admit patients who could not produce a negative Chinese coronavirus test result taken within the previous 48 hours per the city’s strict anti-epidemic protocol. The policy caused at least two deaths in January. A baby tragically died after his or her mother miscarried at eight months pregnant when she was refused treatment for abdominal pain, and a man who was denied treatment for a heart attack also died from the lack of care.

The news site SupChina detailed the miscarriage incident on January 5 after reviewing a social media post documenting the ordeal shared by the pregnant woman’s niece on January 4.

The website relayed:

[H]er sister-in-law, who was eight months pregnant, called an ambulance on the evening of January 1 after feeling intense pain in her abdomen. But when she arrived at a hospital, she was denied emergency care because the validity of her latest COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] test had expired by two hours.

Despite the husband’s pleas, the hospital refused to budge, leaving the woman bleeding profusely outside the facility for two hours. By the time the hospital changed its mind and finally took in the woman, she had waited for four hours and had already miscarried, the niece wrote.

“The miscarriage was the latest springboard for Xi’an residents to voice their indignation at the perceived incompetence of the local government in handling the ongoing outbreak […] in the city, where its residents have been confined to their homes for the past two weeks,” SupChina observed at the time.

“[A]nguish and anger among people in Xi’an have been on full display multiple times with social media campaigns complaining about food shortages, delayed or insufficient grocery deliveries, and sudden orders of centralized quarantine,” the news website relayed.

The Global Times indicated on July 13 that China’s ruling Communist Party announced Li’s dismissal from the Xi’an Medical Emergency Center on July 12 as part of a wider effort by the Party to paint itself as responsive to the mounting public backlash against its “zero tolerance” Chinese coronavirus policy.

“To deal with too-strict anti-epidemic policies imposed by local authorities, the [Chinese Communist Party] State Council’s joint prevention and control mechanism has established a platform on the website of the National Health Commission for people to report controversial regulations,” the newspaper reported on Wednesday.

China’s central government continues to observe and enforce a “zero tolerance” policy toward the Chinese coronavirus that compels a city to lock down its entire populace for weeks at a time if a new outbreak of the disease is detected. Xi’an reimposed movement restrictions across its residential districts on July 5 after recording a fresh Chinese coronavirus cluster at a local trading market.