Trained professionals can function as bridge between patients and hospital
After a series of shocking attacks on medical staff, including some that resulted in serious injuries and death, Beijing health authorities are boosting the number of social workers in an effort to ease the tension.
The capital aims to have a social services department manned by trained professionals in every hospital by 2015.
Health authorities anticipate that the new recruits – who will be hired as part of a national strategy to take the country’s total number of social workers from the current 200,000 to 1.45 million by 2020 – will aid communication between hospitals and patients.