ZCZC
BFF-25
HEALTH-VIRUS-CHINA-HOSPITAL
Wuhan doctor recounts fears and hope at virus frontline
BEIJING, March 5, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – One month after makeshift hospitals
opened to chaos and confusion at the epicentre of China’s coronavirus
epidemic, frontline doctor Ma Yonggang is finally seeing more empty beds as
fewer patients arrive.
When 43-year-old Ma was first summoned to a sports stadium converted into a
medical facility on February 4, it was a virtual construction site with
electrical wiring and beds still being installed.
Separated from his wife and young child who had returned to eastern
Shandong province for Lunar New Year, Ma said he felt “scared and anxious”
when the call from the jury-rigged Wuchang hospital came in the middle of the
night.
But the situation has slowly improved, with the number of patients
receiving treatment in the improvised hospital declining from a high of 760
in mid-February to 320 earlier this week.
“We had 30-40 patients being discharged per day, but the number of patients
admitted was only a dozen or so. This was when the whole situation changed
for us,” Ma, who is the hospital’s deputy director, told AFP in a video call
from Wuhan.
“Now, we admit very few new patients and about three to four recovered
patients are discharged each day.”
The situation Ma described tallies with officials’ accounts of a slowdown
in new infections in Wuhan, an industrial city of 11 million people where the
virus is believed to have emerged at a market that sold wild animals.
It was not always like this.
AFP saw people standing in line for hours to see doctors in Wuhan’s
hospitals during the first weeks of the crisis, when the facilities lacked
enough beds for the thousands of new patients.
– Conditions ‘were quite bad’ –
Hastily converted from sports stadiums, schools and cultural venues,
Wuhan’s 16 makeshift “ark” hospitals were designed to ease the burden on the
city’s overstretched healthcare system.
But in the early stages of the outbreak, they also suffered from the same
widespread shortages of medical protective supplies as the city’s designated
hospitals, Ma said.
The hospitals offer basic treatment and diagnosis for patients with mild to
moderate symptoms, as well as simple recreational facilities.
“When the hospital was opened, the facilities were only for controlling the
outbreak, so the living conditions for patients and medical staff … were
quite bad,” he said in the interview arranged by the State Council’s
information office.
“Now, the conditions have improved a lot, for example now we have patient
exercise areas and bathrooms, and we have indoor heating and catering
services.”
Ma admitted that conditions fell short of patients’ expectations and those
hoping for small rooms to themselves were not prepared for the open-plan
layout of the makeshift hospital. “Once they arrived, they realised that
there were several patients in a large open room and began to doubt whether
they could be treated successfully,” he said.
– Mourning fallen doctors –
More than 80,000 people have been infected and more than 3,000 killed by
the new coronavirus in mainland China, with the majority in Wuhan.
Chinese health authorities and a team of World Health Organization experts
say that at least 3,000 Chinese medical workers have caught the virus —
mostly in Wuhan — and at least 11 have lost their lives.
But according to Ma, none of the medical workers at the city’s makeshift
hospitals have been infected.
The death last month of whistleblower Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old Wuhan
ophthalmologist who was punished for trying to alert people to the outbreak
in December, unleashed a torrent of grief and anger at the authorities.
“We felt extremely sad at his death,” Ma said.
“We will always mourn (Li and the other fallen doctors), and we must learn
from them and dedicate ourselves even more to fighting the virus.”
One of the latest victims was Li’s colleague, Mei Zhongming, who was deputy
director of ophthalmology department at the central hospital and died from
the virus on Tuesday.
While Ma said he was nervous about the possibility of infection, he
remained committed to his duties.
“As Wuhan medical workers, this historic responsibility has fallen on our
shoulders,” he said.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1017 hrs