Six nurses and worker knifed to death at China hospital.!

A knife is displayed after being confiscated at an airport security checkpoint at the JFK International Airport on November 18, 2014 in New York City.Six nurses and a co-worker at a Chinese hospital were knifed to death by another member of staff on November 20, 2014.

BEIJING

Six nurses and a co-worker at a Chinese hospital were knifed to death by another member of staff at a female employees' dormitory Thursday, state media said.

The man who carried out the attack in the resort town of Beidaihe in the northern province of Hebei told police he had "a history of mental illness", state news agency Xinhua said.

The suspect was named as Li Xiaolong by state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), adding he was about 27 and had been detained by police.

The attack was carried out early Thursday "in the women's staff dormitory at the 281 Hospital in Beidaihe", it said in an online post, and another nurse had been wounded.

Chinese hospitals have seen a series of violent attacks, but they are more often carried out by angry patients against medical staff.

In April a 45-year-old man unhappy with his circumcision stabbed a doctor to death in the eastern province of Jiangsu. Three months earlier a man was sentenced to death for killing an ear, nose and throat specialist in neighbouring Zhejiang.