When a worker has to defend his rights in China, sometimes he has to bet his life on it.

Zhang Haichao, a 28-year-old worker from Laozhai Village in Liuzhai County, Xinmi City, Henan Province, signed the waiver and demanded doctors perform life-threatening but medically-unnecessary open chest surgery at a hospital to confirm he had the occupational lung disease, pneumoconiosis.

Zhang started working for Zhengzhou Zhendong Abrasion Proof Material Company, Henan Province, in June 2004. He earned 800-900 yuan ($117.6-132.4) a month.

After working in a dusty working environment for three years, he began coughing and experiencing chest pain at the end of 2007.


Zhang Haichao holds up his 2007 chest X-ray. The 2007 local medical team contacted Zhang’s work unit and suggested he receive a checkup. Their advice was ignored.
He had never paid much attention to the dust until his health deteriorated.
After he left the company, Zhang went to at least six hospitals from Zhengzhou to Beijing for a medical checkup including the First Hospital of Zhengzhou City and Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

Doctors all gave him the same diagnosis: pneumoconiosis, an occupational disease.

Confirmation by different hospitals turned out to be useless to his hopes of receiving treatment. As to qualify, he required certification from his old work unit.

A work unit or danwei is the name given to a place of employment in the Chinese mainland, used more often in the context of a State-owned company. Media reports and the company's own website did not indicate if Zhengzhou Zhendong Abrasion Proof Material Company was a private or State-owned company.

On January 6, Zhang was told by the epidemic prevention station of his home city that as early as 2007 there were problems with his lungs when staff from the station had taken a chest X-ray for him.

"The epidemic prevention station of Xinmi had told my Zhendong work unit to do another checkup, but Zhendong had not informed me," Zhang told the Henan-based newspaper Orient Today on July 10.

The assessment of occupational diseases must be conducted by a local clinic on prevention and treatment of occupational diseases, according to Work-related Injury Insurance Regulations. General hospitals have no right to assess occupational diseases.

Diagnosis and assessment of occupational diseases requires the work unit to contribute occupational evidence such as the type of work and working hours. But Zhang's work unit not only failed to remind him, but simply would not approve a checkup with the local clinic, meaning he could not hope to receive treatment for his occupational disease. Zhang petitioned Xinmi government for help on February 7.

In May, the Xinmi petition bureau ordered Zhang's work unit's local clinic – the Zhengzhou occupational disease prevention and treatment clinic – to diagnose Zhang's condition.

The clinic diagnosed him as having tuberculosis – not pneumoconiosis – and advised treatment at a general hospital.
"I couldn't accept this result, no matter what. Hospitals in Zhengzhou and Beijing had already confirmed I pneumoconiosis," he told Orient Today.


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