School under fire for uniforms made from hospital bed sheets

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In the past few days, pictures of school uniforms imprinted with characters and patterns which normally appear only in the hospital have been circulated on the Chinese social media, provoking speculation that they could be made from hospitals’ used fabrics.

A netizen called Jamhall posted on Weibo on Wednesday that his child, who goes to the Lanzhou No. 32 Middle School in northwest China’s Gansu Province, received the new school uniforms, but he "can’t believe the pockets were made from hospitals’ old bed sheets and quilt covers."

A screenshot of Jamhall's post. /photo via Weibo

In the pictures attached, the word, "people", as well as the Red Cross logo can be seen on the uniforms.

On Saturday afternoon, the local education bureau responded following “an urgent investigation," saying the uniform manufacturer had taken into account the high usage rate of pockets by students and tried to use a more durable fabric, and they found that the Third People's Hospital of Lanzhou happened to have some leftover bed sheet fabric, which would make the best pocket cloth.

The response also stressed that the bureau had inspected two bed sheet samples and results showed that the fabrics used for making uniforms had never been used before, instead of being recycled waste bed sheets from the hospital, as suspected earlier.

Test report by local fiber inspection bureau. /photo via Weibo

The next day, the bureau also announced through its Weibo account that the school’s director had been suspended and both the school principal and the responsible official at the education bureau have been admonished.

In addition, the bureau decided to terminate the cooperation with Gansu Ruyi Garment Co. Ltd., the uniform manufacturer, and suggested including it in the government procurement blacklist for three years.