Award recognizes community management’s role in beating outbreak
China is contributing its community management experience in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic to the world, with its grassroots medical workers being recognized by the world’s top health officers.
In late May, Wu Hao, director of the Fangzhuang Community Health Services Center in Beijing’s Fengtai’s district, was presented with the Sasakawa Health Prize at the World Health Assembly, becoming the third Chinese winner.
Wu, who focuses on grassroots healthcare work, knows the importance of community management, especially during the early stages of epidemic control.
“Infectious diseases are different from other diseases, and can’t be controlled if problems appear at the community level,” he said.
“I think the major reason for our success in controlling the epidemic lies in the good performance of community management. It shows the advantages of our social system, patriotism and the Chinese people’s spirit of self-sacrifice.”
An expert in community healthcare management, Wu was deployed to Wuhan, capital of Hubei province and the Chinese city hit hardest by the outbreak, early last year.
“I arrived in Wuhan in early February and I remember it was a freezing, rainy night,” he said. “I was part of a special expert team made up of professional grassroots medical workers and disease control staff members.
“We grassroots medical workers know how to communicate with residents better.
“We were racing against time every day. From my perspective, locking down a community is a sad and solemn act. We were unwilling to do this but we had no better options. It was a very difficult choice.”
He said that at the very beginning, his work team and residents used any available items, such as cars and motorbikes, to block community exits. He also made great efforts to help solve daily problems.
“I went to supermarkets to coordinate supplies. I proposed that the supermarkets pack the vegetables in advance and transport them to the team managing the community, who would take on the job of handing out the supplies to residents,” Wu said.
Managing a community amid an epidemic requires both a scientific approach and persistence, he said. “Also, it’s not a job that can be done by a single person, but one that needs professional guidance from medical workers, administrative control measures and coordination with residents.”
Wu said that in prevention and control work to combat the epidemic, a community is usually divided into smaller grids, which can each be managed by a team consisting of community officials, inspectors, medical workers and volunteers.
“Every person in the management team has specific tasks, including checking residents’ identities, health monitoring, carrying out closed-loop management of those from areas with high risks of infection and environmental disinfection,” he said.
A precise lockdown of a particular community according to the severity of the situation there can help reduce the negative impact on the area’s social and economic development to some extent, Wu said.
“When there are scattered cases or outbreaks in clusters, closed management is required down to the specific street to prevent the situation from getting worse,” he said.
“When there are no more new cases reported for 14 days, the community can be reopened after the situation is analyzed.”
Wu said community management is still a new concept and requires tailored measures that take account of different situations.
“Cities are different from one another, and so are communities,” he said.
“It can be implemented properly with richer experience and practice. It also needs better social governance capabilities as there is great demand for daily supplies, psychological counseling and medical services for seniors with chronic diseases once a community is put under closed management.”