Zhongshan Hospital medics return home
Yang Jian and Wang Qingchu
A GROUP of 136 medics from Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital returned home from Wuhan yesterday.
The medical team arrived in Wuhan, the hardest-hit area of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Hubei Province, on February 7.
The group took responsibility for two intensive care units at the east branch of Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University.
They treated a total of 152 COVID-19 patients in 55 days and 119 of them have recovered.
The team caught the public’s attention after a photo of Wang Xin, a former violinist of the Wuhan Symphony Orchestra and a professor with the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, playing the violin in his ward to bid farewell to the Shanghai medics was published.
“I can think clearly and play the violin now, though not so well yet. I feel grateful to doctors and nurses from Shanghai, especially Dr Liu Kai,” said the 87-year-old patient, who had been in serious condition due to his infection.
On March 5, Dr Liu and volunteer Gan Junchao wheeled Wang, who had been hospitalized for about a month, to undergo a CT scan at Renmin hospital.
At that time, he was still seriously ill and bed-ridden.
The doctor noticed the sunset as they returned to the ward and suggested they pause to enjoy it. Wang agreed and the volunteer took a picture of the pair bathed in golden light.
Zhongshan Hospital hung a poster of the picture outside its building in Shanghai on March 12 to inspire its medical staff. The heartwarming picture quickly went viral on social media.
“Thanks to strong support from Shanghai, we feel like we never left our hometown,” said Zhu Chouwen, vice president of the hospital and leader of the medical team.
The hospital used 5G technology to offer remote medical consultation to their colleagues in Wuhan. Academicians, such as Dr Ge Junbo, chief physician of the hospital’s cardiac division, and Dr Fan Jia, president of the hospital, offered suggestions and guidelines to the medical team from Shanghai and northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
With joint effort, the Shanghai team helped develop principles to treat COVID-19 cases.
It also introduced modern nursing standards to treat patients in serious condition.
The clinical experience of treating COVID-19 has been recorded and turned into public lectures to share with medical professionals around the globe, Zhongshan Hospital revealed.
The information covers epidemiological characteristics, clinical manifestations, disease diagnosis and various treatment methods.
Zhong Ming, an intensive care expert at the hospital, has remained in Wuhan to continue the virus fight. Zhong was the first medical expert to rush to Wuhan alone on January 23.
China Eastern Airlines’ MU9004 charter flight with the returning medical team landed at Hongqiao airport at 11:53am yesterday.
A China Eastern mechanic Di Haiguo waited on the tarmac for his wife Xi Huan, a nurse of the hospital and a member of the medical team. He presented a bouquet of flowers to Xi after she got off the plane.
“I had prepared lots of words but could remember nothing after I saw you,” Di told his wife.
Over 32,000 doctors and nurses from all over China who helped fight the pandemic in Hubei went home on 235 chartered flights between March 17 and 31, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said.
None of the more than 40,000 medical workers, including 1,649 from Shanghai, dispatched to Hubei tested positive for the virus, according to the National Health Commission.