It all started with a photo of a swollen feet posted online.

Zhang Chunhua, the deputy director of the department of gynecology at Maternity and Child Health Hospital in Huaian, eastern central China’s Jiangsu Province, shared a photo of her swollen feet after working long hours in the operating room.

The photo attracted people's attention and put spotlight yet again on overworked Chinese physicians.

“After finishing all of the surgeries, my feet were too swollen to wear any shoes,” she wrote on her WeChat account.  Her post went viral even on Weibo and impressed many netizens. Meanwhile, it also stirred discussions about the working conditions of Chinese doctors.

“The unbalanced demand and supply relationship between doctors and patients make doctors in China do a lot of excess work,” Weibo user Linlu Linlu commented.

“When can the ill-designed hospital system be improved and when can the tension among patients and doctors be relieved?” netizen Shenghuoruluoyi said.

The issue of overworking doctors  is always a heated topic in China, especially after 2008 when growing numbers of news about physicians’ sudden death appeared on newspapers.   

Between January and July last year, 13 doctors reportedly lost their lives due to excessive working, according to Beijing News citing Chinese Circulation Journal, a Chinese medical journal.

Zhao Bianxiang, 43, a respiratory illness specialist at the Department of Respiratory Care at the Yuci District Hospital in Jinzhong, a medium-sized city in Shanxi, fainted and died after reportedly working for over 18 hours without any rest. Guo Qingyuan, 43, a male doctor having two very young kids living in Qinghai Province, collapsed and lost his life after receiving 38 patients in one night without a break in January 2018.

“In winter, the departments of pediatrics and respiratory care have the highest number of patients,” Dr Zhao ‘s colleague said to Shanxi Evening News after she passed away. “Often times, doctors could not finish their work on time because they are too busy. In addition, the Department of Respiratory Care had some extra tasks recently.”  

Doctors at tertiary hospitals in China work 51.05 hours per week on average, which surpasses the standard 40-hour weekly working hours stipulated by the labor law of China, according to a report about Chinese physicians' working condition published by the Chinese Medical Association in January.

“I never thought that the picture could go viral,” Zhang Chunhua said to Beijing Morning Post, a daily newspaper in China. “Working over 10 hours a day to conduct surgery is very common in China, especially for surgeons. During the operation, we put all of our focus on our patients and often ignore how many hours we have stood on our feet.”