A female township official in central China's Henan Province has been detained and questioned for allegedly confining and threatening four nurses, sources with the local police said on Wednesday.

Police said Pan Lina, a former deputy secretary of Luobei Township in Luoyang City, and her relatives confined four nurses for more than five hours in a ward, after her brother-in-law, a cancer patient surnamed Song, died in a hospital there on Nov. 15.

Pan claimed that the nurses were responsible for Song's death, because they forcibly changed his sheets.

The nurses argued that they did so because Song was lying on a quilt his family brought from home, which was against hospital rules, and they had sought consent from the family.

After Song's death, Pan and her sister blocked three nurses in the ward and dragged another nurse from her office to "repent" in their ward.

Police said the nurses were threatened, scolded and menaced by the dead man's relatives.

Liu Yu, an official with the hospital, said: "Policemen who came on an emergency call, for no reason, took no effective measures, but instead, ordered the nurses to record the incidents in the ward."

The nurses, identified by their surnames as Chai, Dong, Wei, and Yu, are recovering at the hospital. Chai, 44, appeared terrified and in a disordered mental state.

A petition signed by more than 200 nurses at the hospital has been sent to the government.

The city and district governments have set up a team to investigate the incident, including the reported dereliction of duty by the police.

Pan was put under 15-day-detention, fined 500 yuan and suspended from her post.

(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2007)