BAZHOU, China — Yao Ruyan paced frantically outside the fever clinic of a county hospital in China’s industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometers southwest of Beijing. Her mother-in-law had Covid-19 and needed urgent medical care, but all hospitals nearby were full.As China grapples with its first-ever national Covid-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed.
“I’m furious,” Yao said, tearing up, as she clutched the lung scans from the local hospital. “I don’t have much hope. We’ve been out for a long time and I’m terrified because she’s having difficulty breathing.” The Chinese government has reported only seven Covid-19 deaths since restrictions were loosened dramatically on Dec. 7, bringing the country’s total toll to 5,241. On Tuesday, a Chinese health official said that China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official Covid-19 death toll, a narrow definition that excludes many deaths that would be attributed to Covid-19 in other places.
“There’s no oxygen or electricity in this corridor!” the worker exclaimed. “If you can’t even give him oxygen, how can you save him?”The relatives left, hoisting the patient back into the ambulance. It took off, lights flashing. At a crematorium in Gaobeidian, about 20 kilometers south of Zhuozhou, the body of one 82-year-old woman was brought from Beijing, a two-hour drive, because funeral homes in China’s capital were packed, according to the woman’s grandson, Liang.
“There’s been a lot!” a worker said when asked about the number of Covid-19 deaths, before funeral director Ma Xiaowei stepped in and brought the journalists to meet a local government official. “There’s no so-called explosion in cases, it’s all under control,” said Wang Ping, the administrative manager of Gaobeidian Hospital, speaking by the hospital’s main gate. “There’s been a slight decline in patients.”
The Baigou New Area Aerospace Hospital was quiet and orderly, with empty beds and short lines as nurses sprayed disinfectant. Covid-19 patients are separated from others, staff said, to prevent cross-infection. But they added that serious cases are being directed to hospitals in bigger cities, because of limited medical equipment.
Outside a CT scan room, a woman sitting on a bench wheezed as snot dribbled out of her nostrils into crumpled tissues. A man sprawled out on a stretcher outside the emergency ward as medical workers stuck electrodes to his chest. By a check-in counter, a woman sitting on a stool gasped for air as a young man held her hand.
Source: Healthcare Press (healthcarepress.net)
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