A massive strike broke out recently at the People’s Hospital in Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province, China. Due to the hospital’s failure to pay salaries for five consecutive months and its long-term neglect in providing medical insurance and social security contributions for employees, doctors, nurses, and administrative staff from various departments walked out of the hospital and gathered in front of the entrance with banners and chants demanding the hospital to repay the overdue labor remuneration.
In a video from the scene, about a hundred healthcare workers were seen holding banners with red backgrounds and white lettering, which read, “Suihua City People’s Hospital owes employees salaries and social insurance, return our hard-earned money.” A representative of the workers spoke out at the scene, stating that the hospital had not paid medical and social insurance contributions as required for many years, and employees’ salaries had been withheld for five consecutive months. She expressed concerns about the hospital’s continuous profit-making while failing to pay healthcare workers their due wages, questioning, “Where has all this money gone?”
Video footage shows plainclothes police officers confiscating banners held by doctors in front of the hospital and dispersing the crowd of protesters. Some protesters became emotional during the confrontation with the police, leading to verbal clashes. A female worker representative shouted at the police, questioning their authority to intervene and asking, “How do you expect us to live when our salaries are being withheld for so long?”
Online information indicates that the People’s Hospital in Suihua City is a local second-class A public hospital, but its management and financial situation have raised questions among doctors. Just over a month before the strike, the hospital was issued a fine of 910,000 yuan by the Suihua City Health Care Security Bureau for violations such as excessive treatment and double billing.
Industry insiders point out that despite the hospital’s sound operational performance, the long-term failure to pay salaries and social insurance suggests serious financial issues within the hospital.
Reporters attempted to contact the hospital’s emergency department to inquire about the situation of doctors’ rights protection but were hung up on by a female who claimed they were still pursuing unpaid wages and urging the payment of social insurance contributions. She expressed frustration, stating that they had not received salaries for five to six months while continuing to work on the front lines, essentially working at their own expense, questioning the current state of affairs. The journalist’s call was abruptly cut off. Subsequent attempts to reach the hospital’s Medical Affairs Office went unanswered.
According to doctors at the hospital, as early as during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, frontline healthcare workers had their salaries withheld for three to four months. Some nurses had gone online to question how they could continue working with their salaries being withheld. In July 2023, a worker recorded a video exposing the hospital’s director for long-term wage deductions and accusations of threats and insults against employees. The whistleblower stated that for the past 13 years, the hospital had not paid full year salaries, with the whereabouts of several months’ wages unknown; out of the 19 months of basic and performance wages allocated by the Chinese Communist Party in 2022, employees received only half; frontline staff did not receive their salaries, while insiders in the finance department received four times the regular pay. The whistleblower questioned why the hospital could not pay employees on time with its long-term profitability.
In recent years, salary arrears have emerged in public hospitals in various provinces. Previously a common issue in construction and manufacturing industries, the problem has now spread to the healthcare system.
Since the beginning of this year, the independent documentation project “Yesterday” has recorded similar incidents of salary arrears at three public hospitals: Hedo Hospital in Linyi, Shandong; Xindu Central Hospital in Xingtai, Hebei; and the People’s Hospital in Suihua, all involving long-term salary arrears and missed social insurance contributions. Commentators note that under heightened online scrutiny and public opinion pressure, many healthcare workers are hesitant to speak out publicly, implying that the cases uncovered are just the tip of the iceberg.
Some industry practitioners have commented that many county-level hospitals rely heavily on medical insurance income for operation, but with stricter audits on medical insurance, hospitals are experiencing slower fund returns. They believe that such instances of salary arrears may continue to occur in grassroots hospitals unless there is increased local government funding or reform in hospital revenue structure to resolve the issue.
Public information reveals that this year, several hospitals across China have been exposed for failing to pay healthcare workers, making salary arrears a common issue across multiple provinces. In September, a hundred healthcare workers from the Xindu Central Hospital in Xingtai, Hebei, appealed to the government over unpaid wages spanning three to four months; in July, the Hedo District People’s Hospital in Linyi, Shandong, delayed salary payments and reduced performance wages, leading to a collective work stoppage; in June, numerous healthcare workers at the Beiyuquan Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in Yingkou, Liaoning, openly demanded unpaid wages, citing delays of over three months; in May, a county hospital in Qiandongnan, Guizhou, was exposed for not paying performance bonuses for half a year; in March, nurses at the Huaiyang County Central Hospital in Zhoukou, Henan, collectively rejected unpaid overtime work, citing similar delays in wage payments.