11 blamed in case of surgery livestream

Eleven people have been held accountable for a doctor working at Rizhao Central Hospital in the Donggang district of Rizhao, Shandong province, who was accused of unethically livestreaming a gynecological surgery, the district's publicity department said on Friday.

The police have detained the doctor, surnamed Li, and filed an application for formal arrest, the announcement by the district's publicity department said.

Li's certificate to practice medicine will be canceled, and he will be dismissed, the announcement said.

The district's discipline inspection and supervisory commission set up a group on Tuesday to investigate the report of the livestreamed surgery on the Bilibili video sharing and entertainment platform.

Eleven people working at the district government, health commission and the hospital are being held accountable. Those who bore direct responsibility in the case were removed from their posts.

The district has started a comprehensive search for problems in medical management and doctors' ethics to prevent similar issues in the future.

Li needs to accept civil and administrative responsibility because he seriously violated professional ethics and infringed on the patient's privacy, Ding Jinkun, a lawyer with DeBund Law Offices, was quoted as saying by The Paper.

If a patient's information, such as her name and address, were released, then the doctor needs to take legal responsibility. If the doctor only showed certain body parts of the patient but didn't release personal information, then he didn't invade the privacy of the patient, said Liu Ye, a lawyer at Shanghai Haishang law offices was quoted as saying by The Paper.