Military medics’ frontline role fighting COVID- 19
The contribution by the role models in the country’s fight against COVID- 19 was celebrated at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sept 8.
The military medical team that helped Hubei province had done an excellent job in fighting against the pandemic in the most critical time, according to a report by the Xinhua News Agency.
On the night of Lunar New Year’s Eve, 450 soldiers from the second, third and fourth military medical universities from the Navy, Army and Air Force formed three medical teams to support Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, the hardest- hit Chinese city in the COVID- 19 pandemic.
Song Caiping from the Third Military Medical University could only grab a chicken wing at the family gathering dinner before she left for Wuhan.
At Xi’an Xianyang International Airport, the medical team from the Fourth Military Medical University were ready to set off — they came from multidisciplinary departments, including respirator y, critical care medicine and infection control and all the team members have experience in prevention and control of infectious disease.
All three teams arrived in Wuhan on Jan 24 and started to sort and count the medical supplies and organized training overnight.
According to Chen Hongwei, the political officer of the medical team from the Second Military Medical University, medical staff members signed up to join the team and “no one flinched”. Even when he arrived in Wuhan, he still communicated with the ones who were not selected into the team and persuaded them to stay put to prepare for the next assignment.
More medical workers from the PLA joined. On Feb 2, 13 and 17, several military transport aircraft took off from Shenyang in Liaoning province, Lanzhou in Gansu province, Guangzhou in Guangdong province and other cities and landed at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport.
By Feb 17, more than 4,000 military medical workers arrived in Wuhan. Among them, the youngest was born in July 1999 while the oldest was about to finish their service.
Li Qi, a respiratory and critical care medicine specialist from the medical team of the Third Military Medical University, told Xinhua: “There is no need for mobilization as we have been ready since the first day we put on the military uniform.”
The three military medical teams started to work at three Wuhan hospitals separately to treat patients on the second day after arriving: the army medical team joined the Jinyintan Hospital and took 83 patients within 48 hours; the navy medical team took over work at the ICU wards at the Wuhan Hankou Hospital; the air f orce team j oined Wuchang Hospital and started to operate nucleic acid tests.
On Feb 4, Huoshenshan Hospital took the first batch of patients with 1,000 beds available and later 1,200 medical staff members helped the Guanggu branch of the Maternal and Child Hospital of
Hubei Province and expanded the wards to arrange 800 beds for patients.
Zhao Yuying, head of a ward area in Huoshenshan Hospital, led her team to take care of 24 patients in severe condition, the first batch received by the hospital. She set up a WeChat group and answered all questions from her patients. She replied to more than 300 WeChat messages each day, sometimes until 3 am.
A 64- year- old patient urinated six times in less than an hour; a 90- year- old woman couldn’ t speak or understand Mandarin; a 56- year- old woman who had a glioma surgery half a year ago vomited once she ate the medicine — Zhao had to deal with all the problems.
“Companionship is a useful recipe,” Zhao told Xinhua.
When Chen Jing, head nurse of ICU wards in Huoshenshan Hospital, was cleaning the sputum inside a patient’s mouth, the patient suddenly coughed heavily and the sputum was spouted onto Chen’s protective mask. She didn’ t say anything but cleaned it calmly.
“What the patients are afraid of most is that nobody care about them,” Chen said to her nurses and kept bringing warmth to the patients.
Chu Liyun, head nurse at the Guanggu branch of the Maternal and Child Hospital of Hubei Province always granted whatever she was asked. A 96- year- old patient with the surname Hu told Xinhua that the voice of Chu was so beautiful that once Chu asked her to drink the traditional Chinese medicine, “It didn’ t feel that bitter.’’
While life in Wuhan was gradually getting back to normal, the military medical team was the last batch of medical teams to leave the city on the morning of April 16. Many of the members didn’t even have a chance to try the local snack reganmian, hot dry noodles, or have a look at the blooming cherry blossoms.