a shameful waste of madhouse time

In Shaanxi province: a woman named Li Chenghui was living with six disabled people. The article title in Chinese might be misleading because it implies that they are all mentally disabled. However, it seems that Li’s parents are both mutes (her father was severely injured in an accident, but not necessarily mentally disabled), and her husband’s parents are both mentally disabled. The couple had two daughters, the second of which, born in 2002, was also disabled. A further blow to the already impoverished family came when Li’s brother was involved in a work-related accident and was paralyzed from the waist down, causing his pregnant wife to leave him and go back to her hometown. It was under these circumstances that Li did the unthinkable (and unconscionable): feed her own daughter some kind of pesticide/poison. The girl kept vomiting and they took her to the local village clinic, but her situation worsened. They called 120 for the ambulance but the girl, unfortunately, died shortly after the ambulance arrived.

The article comes from the Blue Cross Psychological Aid website (in Chinese) which I had previously visited when reading about the psychological aid efforts in post-earthquake Sichuan. Looks like this is a website worth keeping track of…if you don’t mind occasionally reading depression-inducing news.