Chinese authorities have launched an investigation into the hospital over an incident in which a surgeon allegedly punched a female patient he was operating on.
The incident was filmed and the video went viral on Chinese social media this week, sparking outrage online.
The board of directors of the hospital suspended the surgeon and fired the general manager of the hospital where the incident took place in 2019.
The video appears to show the surgeon hitting the patient in the head at least three times while operating on his eyes.
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Ayer China, which operates a chain of eye hospitals, said the incident occurred during an operation at its hospital in Guigang, a city in southwest China.
The BBC has contacted management for comment.
The patient was an 82-year-old woman and "during the operation, due to local anesthesia, the patient had intolerance".
She moved her head and eyeballs several times, according to their statement.
Since the patient only knows the local dialect, it seems that she did not respond to the doctor's warnings in Mandarin, so the surgeon decided to "do a rough procedure in an emergency situation".
Local authorities say the patient suffered bruising to her forehead.
After the operation, the hospital administration apologized and paid 500 yuan (about 63 euros) as compensation, the patient's son told local media.
He added that his mother is now blind in her left eye, although it is not clear if this is due to the incident.
Ayer China said the hospital did not report the incident to the Board of Directors.
On Thursday, it announced that the hospital's general managers had been dismissed and that the surgeon had been suspended for "serious breaches of the group's regulations", which included other unspecified offences.
Although the incident took place in December 2019, it only came to public attention this week after prominent Chinese doctor Ai Fen shared footage of the operation caught on security cameras.
Dr. Ai, who was among a group of doctors who alerted the public to the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, posted the video on her Weibo account, which has more than two million followers.
Dr. Ai has been suing Ayer China since 2021 when she went for surgery in one of their hospitals.
She claims that she almost went blind in one eye as a result of the operation, but Ayer China has denied the allegations.
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