According to the BBC, authorities arrested two hospital workers on March 30 in eastern China after the bodies of 21 babies and fetuses were found dumped on a riverbank, state media reports. Officials said the babies’ families had paid Zhu Zhenyu and Wang Zhijun to dispose of the bodies but instead they had dumped them by the Guangfu River. Eight of the bodies were said to be wearing identification bands showing they had come from the Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University. The Xinhua news agency reported a director and deputy director at the hospital have been removed from their posts while a vice-president had been suspended pending an investigation. Concerned officials say it exposes a serious loophole in the hospital’s management and indicates a lack of ethics and legal awareness of some hospital staff. A senior official of the Jining health bureau, said the bodies could be those of aborted fetuses or of babies who died at the hospital. Abortions are common in China, partly due to the one-child policy. Cremation can also be prohibitively expensive for poor families.
