Shanghai medical workers team closes a Wuhan hospital ward
MEDICAL workers from Shanghai No. 7 People’s Hospital and Renji Hospital closed a general ward they were in charge of at Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan, the city hard hit by the novel coronavirus in central China’s Hubei Province, yesterday after the last COVID-19 patient was discharged.
According to Chen Sheng, chief of the C4 ward, they will join the hospital’s intensive care unit team today.
The C4 ward began accepting COVID-19 patients on February 23 and has treated 52 patients, 51 of whom have recovered and left the hospital. The other patient was transferred to another ward.
Le Ye, head nurse of the ward, said that, in contrast to the ICU, medics cared more about the patients’ mental health and private needs.
Its last patient, surnamed Zhu, was transferred to the ward on March 30 from another ward.
As her condition remained stable and she tested negative in the nucleic acid test twice, the medical team agreed to discharge her yesterday.
Following her departure, the medics handed the medical facilities, drugs and supplies and patients’ medical records over to the hospital.
They thoroughly disinfected and cleaned the ward before the closure.
“Leishenshan Hospital is unique as it was built as a makeshift hospital for treating COVID-19 patients in the pandemic.
“Like the patients, we medical workers also hope it can close as soon as possible with all its patients recovered,” said Lin Yan, leader of Shanghai No. 7 People’s Hospital’s medical team. “Our ward is a ‘barometer’ of the epidemic.
“At the beginning, many patients had to wait for beds. Later, the number of patients requiring hospitalization dropped. In the past two weeks, there were no new patients coming or being transferred to the ward, which proves that the pandemic has been well controlled.”
Lin said that Leishenshan Hospital now had only tens of patients in four wards and two intensive care units who were being taken care of by the medical workers from Shanghai.