China's Supreme People's Court has issued a statement saying people who assault medical workers will be severely punished.
The statement comes amid several recent violent crimes against medical staff, which have aroused wide public discussions about the doctor-patient relations in China.
Frustration, misunderstanding and dissatisfaction are the characteristics of doctor-patient relations in China, often resulting in violence.
A 54-year-old radiotherapy doctor at a hospital in Guangxi was attacked on Tuesday morning. A patient poured gasoline on him in a hospital lift and lit it.
Chen Huaidai, a stuff nurse who was on the scene, helped Dr. Qin right after the attack.
"There was fire all over him. I saw him rolling on the floor, taking off his burning clothes. He told me it was his old patient who lit him on fire. He was whispering, looked very weak, already."
Dr. Qin is currently in intensive care, with burns to over a third of his body. Doctors say if he survives the attack, the burns will definitely disfigure him.
Local police say the suspect, surnamed Wang, had received treatment in Qin's department three years ago after being diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer.
This case is hardly an isolated incident in Chinese hospitals.
Only two weeks ago, Liu Feng, an Otolaryngology attendant at a hospital in Shanxi province was hit by a patient after stopping the patient from cutting in line.
Liu was diagnosed with a severe rupture to his eyeball.
While doctors are fretting over troubled relationship with patients, the patients have grievances of their own, having long complained about the difficulty of seeing doctors and obtaining proper treatment.
Deng Liqiang, a lawyer with the Chinese Medical Association, says one of the underlying reasons is uneven distribution of medical resources.
"Patients flood into big hospitals where doctors are always busy. Meanwhile, community hospitals remain highly available but are barely recognized by patients. The overcrowding in big hospitals inevitably slashes consultation times and mars doctor-patient communication, resulting in patients feeling unsatisfied and creating problem-prone medical relationships."
The dissatisfaction has fueled resentment on both sides. In 2014, more than 110,000 medical disputes were reported across the country.
Zhang Xiaodong, with Beijing Cancer Hospital & School of Oncology, Peking University, says patients should have "reasonable expectations" for doctors.
"Patients have very high expectations and they do not accept the fact that there are complications after treatment. It creates a huge problem. Actually, we do not have adequate public education concerning many kinds of diseases."
In a survey published last month, 13 percent of the over 12,000 doctors polled said they had been physically assaulted by patients in the last year, with nearly 60 percent having been verbally abused.
Sixty percent of doctors reported low job satisfaction, and 64 percent did not want their children to become doctors.
