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CHINA DAILY | HONG KONG EDITION Thursday, February 13, 2020 | 17 LIFE n Dec 26, 2019, 54­year­ among their patients. old Zhang Jixian, director After the six patients were trans­ of the Department of Res­ ferred to Jinyintan, more patients piratory and Critical Care with similar symptoms came, so OMedicine of Hubei Provincial Hospi­ that, on Jan 1, the isolation ward tal of Integrated Chinese & Western was full. During the New Year holi­ Medicine, received an elderly cou­ day, patients at respiratory and criti­ ple. Both of them had a high fever cal care departments increased and coughed, looking like they had drastically, from 100 per day to 230 been hit by a normal case of the flu. per day. More patients shared the However, when she checked the CT same symptoms as the first seven scans of their lungs, she found cases. something unusual. On Jan 17, the inpatient depart­ Normally, pneumonia causes a ment was transformed into an isola­ pathological change to one of the tion area. Two weeks later, the lungs, but the scans showed that the hospital was designated as one of two elderly people each had ground­ those specifically equipped to treat glass opacity in both, which was the pneumonia caused by the novel something Zhang had never seen coronavirus. The hospital was divid­ before. ed into six parts, with a total of 160 Examinations ruled out common beds. viruses such as influenza A and B, As the director of her department, mycoplasma, chlamydia, and adeno­ Zhang looked after the most severe virus. Zhang’s thoughts turned to patients, but would help her col­ SARS, or severe acute respiratory leagues during busy periods. syndrome, that she fought 17 years “Since the end of December, there ago. At that time, her daily work was has not been a break. We work from to investigate suspicious cases in the morning to night without much hospitals of Wuhan’s Jianghan dis­ sense of time. After work, we go trict. But, the symptoms displayed Zhang Jixian, director of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine of Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese & directly to bed,” Zhang says. by these two new patients were dif­ Western Medicine, looks at a patient’s CT scan at the hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Jan 30. PHOTOS BY YUAN ZHENG / FOR CHINA DAILY It takes half an hour to take off the ferent from those of SARS. protective suits. There are a total of Highly alert to the situation, she 27 steps, during which hands need asked if the couple had other family to be sanitized 12 times. After doc­ members. Their son came. Although tors use toilets, they need to put on he appeared healthy, CT scans of his new protective suits, of which there lungs also showed ground glass is a shortage. As a result, in order to opacity. save time and to manage the use of “Usually, unless it’s infectious, a Leading the fight the limited number of protective whole family won’t get the same dis­ suits, doctors and nurses wear adult ease,” she said in an interview with diapers, and try to drink and eat as the Global People magazine. little as possible during their shift. Uncertain about the causes, Zhang Jixian, a doctor on the front line of the battle to contain the epidemic, Despite carefully taking all the pre­ Zhang decided to admit them into cautions, some of Zhang’s col­ hospital. On the same day, another was among the first to identify the symptoms of the novel coronavirus leagues became infected due to patient, a seller from Huanan Sea­ in Wuhan and alert the authorities to its potency, Yang Yang reports. their prolonged exposure to a large food Market, reported the same number of patients. symptoms and examinations also Over the past month, Zhang ruled out common viruses. Jinyintan Hospital, a designated couple and their son, Zhang revealed she had burst into tears “China’s Law on Licensed Doctors hospital for infectious diseases. The required all her colleagues in the several times. Sometimes, it was requires us to report diseases of elderly couple’s son, insisting on department to wear facial masks. because patients suddenly turned unknown causes,” said Zhang in a staying, was cured and discharged When they entered the isolation critically ill and died despite all of previous interview with China Cen­ on Jan 7. area, they would put on N95 masks her best efforts. Sometimes, it was tral Television. The next day, she In the early morning of Jan 1, supplied by the hospital. She also because the supply of N95 facial reported the four cases to the hospi­ Huanan Seafood Market was shut asked her colleague to buy 30 sets of masks and protective suits ran criti­ tal authorities, who immediately down. It was the start of the new white canvas work clothes online, cally low. Sometimes it was just informed the center for disease con­ year, and 23 days later, it would be which arrived on Dec 31. because she saw how hard her col­ trol and prevention of Jianghan dis­ the Spring Festival. The traffic flow “If we had applied for protective leagues were working. trict of Wuhan. would be huge, because tens of thou­ suits, the ordering process would “Too many patients. It’s such a In the following two days, Zhang sands of people would be shopping have been slower,” Zhang says. hard time for my colleagues,” she and her colleagues received three for the festival. “Anyway, another layer of clothes says. more patients, all with the same “Things would have been much gave us more protection.” “Everybody is trying their best.” symptoms, and all from Huanan worse if the seafood market was not Zhang and her colleagues wore As Huoshenshan (Fire God Moun­ Seafood Market. On Dec 29, Zhang shut down,” Zhang says. the canvas clothes beneath their tain) Hospital and Leishenshan reported the situation to hospital “I’m happy that I did the right Above: Zhang inspects a novel doctor’s coats and nurse’s tunics (Thunder God Mountain) Hospital authorities. The hospital hosted a thing.” coronavirus patient in an until Jan 20, when experts opened their doors, with a joint consultation, which decided that On Feb 6, Zhang was rewarded by isolation ward at the hospital. announced that the novel coronavi­ capacity of 2,500 beds for critically­ the disease was truly unusual. They Hubei’s human resources and social Left: The doctor wears protec­ rus could be spread by people and ill patients, and three emergency also found two similarly­affected security department and the prov­ tive gear before entering the the hospital equipped them with hospitals were also completed with patients in two other hospitals, ince’s health commission for being isolation ward. protective suits. a collective 3,400 beds for mildly­ill whose addresses were listed as Hua­ the first person to report the infec­ To prevent other patients from patients, the chance of the further nan Seafood Market too. tious disease to the government. becoming infected, Zhang and her spread of the virus has dropped, as The Hubei Provincial Center for Yao Aidong, director of the medi­ colleagues managed to persuade the most infectious sources are Disease Control and Prevention cal examination center with Zhong­ “She used every opportunity to Apart from reporting the situa­ them to leave the hospital. Before largely isolated. immediately sent experts to investi­ nan Hospital of Wuhan University, analyze difficult diseases with class­ tion to the authorities, Zhang imme­ the large­scale outbreak of the Zhang says that, recently, she has gate the seven patients at the Hubei Zhang’s university classmate, said mates, even at reunion parties, so we diately isolated an area with nine pneumonia caused by the novel cor­ been seeing fewer new cases. Provincial Hospital of Integrated that Zhang worked very hard at uni­ are not surprised at all that it was her beds in her department’s 45­bed onavirus, no medical workers were Chinese & Western Medicine. Six versity, and was fully devoted to her who noticed the disease and report­ ward for patients with the unknown infected in Zhang’s department and Contact the writer at patients were transferred to Wuhan work. ed it to the government,” she says. disease. Since receiving the elderly no cross­infection was recorded [email protected] Engineers Orchestra piece for Wuhan medics answer a By CHEN NAN [email protected] Because of the coronavirus out­ call of help break, this year was the first time that violinist Zhang Qin hadn’t returned to her hometown, from Hubei Wuhan, Hubei province, for a reunion with her family over By MA ZHENHUAN in Hangzhou Spring Festival. and FENG ZHIWEI in Changsha Zhang, who graduated from the Central Conservatory of Three engineers from Heng­ Music in the Chinese capital and yang, Hunan province, spared no Wang Hui (first right), Zhu Wei (third from right) and Liu Wenhong joined the Beijing Symphony effort to support the project to build (third from left), three engineers from Hengyang, Hunan province, Orchestra in 1999, is now express­ Leishenshan Hospital, a makeshift pose with colleagues at Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan. ing her solidarity with her home­ facility to treat coronavirus patients PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY town through music. in Wuhan, Hubei province, from She and 11 fellow musicians Jan 31 to Feb 5. from the orchestra played Liu Wenhong, a communications from his family, got a phone call worked around the clock to com­ English composer Edward engineer at a Hengyang company, from his mother. He told her that plete the task on time.

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