Medics leave hospital as mission accomplished

Vice Mayor Wu Yihuan, shakes hands with medical workers at the Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital farewell ceremony yesterday. Courtesy of the Shenzhen Health Commission

A farewell ceremony for medical personnel fighting on the epidemic frontline at the Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital, the city’s designated hospital for treating COVID-19 patients, was held yesterday.

The first group of 78 medical workers from across the city assembled to support medical efforts in the hospital will return to their original posts in their respective hospitals to continue the fight against the epidemic.

Shenzhen dispatched a total of 130 experienced medical workers to aid the anti-virus battle at the Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital since the start of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Among them, 58 are doctors, 51 are nurses, 11 are medical laboratory experts, eight are specialists in hospital-acquired infection and two are pharmaceutical experts.

Feng Yongwen, 64, is the director of the ICU unit at the Shenzhen No. 2 People’s Hospital and the head of the city’s novel coronavirus pneumonia specialist group.

“On the evening of New Year’s Eve, I received a call saying that I should immediately organize a group of ICU experts to rush to the Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital to treat patients in serious condition. In four days, 23 doctors were in place, including 15 experts and eight senior doctors, all of whom came from the ICU units of major hospitals in Shenzhen,” said Feng.

The expert group began their work at the hospital on the first day of the Lunar New Year, eating simple meals when hungry and staying in a hotel next to the hospital for rest in the evening.

Feng spent two weeks transforming ordinary wards into ICU units and installing surveillance cameras to better monitor patients.

“The situation can change for critically ill patients at any time, requiring close management by doctors. Many doctors stay up until the early morning every day,” said Fu Yingyun, director of the respiratory and intensive care medicine department of the Shenzhen People’s Hospital.

According to the Shenzhen Health Commission, at present, the number of hospitalized patients in the city continues to decrease. After reaching a peak of 325 cases on Feb. 8, the number of hospitalized patients has gradually decreased to just 31 as of yesterday.

Meanwhile, the spread of the epidemic in the city has been kept basically under control, and the number of new imported cases per day hasn’t increased significantly.

Since March 1, a total of 33 newly confirmed cases have been imported into Shenzhen from abroad.

Shenzhen confirmed one more imported COVID-19 case Monday, the city’s health commission reported. A 21-year-old female Chinese student who returned to China from the United Kingdom was confirmed infected with COVID-19 on Monday. She reported that she had been to the United States before returning to the U.K. on March 7. On March 15, she flew from London to Hong Kong on flight CX254. She entered the Chinese mainland via Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint the next day. Upon entry she reported coughing and was sent to a hospital by negative pressure ambulance on March 17. She was then confirmed infected with COVID-19 by a group of medical experts.

The patient has been transferred to the Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital for treatment. Primary tracing results show that no person on the Chinese mainland has had close contact with the patient.