Recently, the National Health Commission ("NHC") and the Ministry of Justice ("MOJ") have jointly released the Administrative Measures for the Identification of Medical Damage (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") to seek public comments by November 12, 2018.
45 articles in total in the Draft for Comment are organized into seven chapters, including "general provisions", "identification agencies and identifiers", "delegation of identification and acceptance thereof", "conduct of identification", "supervision and administration", "legal liability" and "supplementary provisions". It mainly provides for connotations of the identification and administrative departments, the record-filing system for identification agencies and the establishment of a unified database of identification experts, requirements for the team of identification experts, processes to identify medical damage, and supervision of the identification of medical damage and punishments in this regard. The Draft for Comment expressly states that, a medical association or a forensic identification agency may engage in the identification of medical damage, provided that it meets relevant conditions, and shall file a record for this purpose with both the provincial administrative department of health and the provincial department of justice, at its locality. Furthermore, the Draft for Comment provides the procedures and standards that must be followed in identifying medical damage, including the delegation of identification, acceptance thereof, the team of identification experts, and the conduct.