Shanghai's medical heroes returning home
Members of the Shanghai East Hospital team bid farewell to their Wuhan counterparts before returning home.
After working under great pressure to treat coronavirus patients in Wuhan, Huang Guoxin, a senior pharmacist with Shanghai East Hospital, was both relieved and reluctant to leave.
"I'd established a deep friendship with other pharmacists from across the nation as well as some patients," Huang said. "Besides, I have yet to see the famous cherry blossom at Wuhan University, which should be blooming right now.”
Huang and his colleagues in the hospital’s 53-member team helping in the Hubei Province capital received the order to return home on Monday afternoon.
They packed 20 medical tents and other belongings overnight at a hospital renovated from a cultural complex known as the Wuhan Living Room where they'd fought COVID-19 for 44 days.
The first batch of over 3,000 members of medical teams like Huang’s from across the nation began returning home on Tuesday.
The 3,675 medical professionals and support crew, including 421 traditional Chinese medicine doctors, are from 16 provinces and municipalities.
They worked in seven hospitals and 14 makeshift hospitals renovated from convention centers and cultural venues like the Wuhan Living Room.
Over 30,000 doctors and nurses from across the nation have been sent to Hubei since February.
A team from northwest China’s Shaanxi Province was first to leave Wuhan. Its 43 members set off in nine vehicles at 6am on Tuesday.
Another 100 team members from Hainan Island returned after a short farewell ceremony at 8am. They will be followed by 138 members from Tianjin, who will fly back on a charter flight on Wednesday.
Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines operated six charter flights from Wuhan to Xining in northwest Qinghai Province, Lanzhou in northwest Gansu and Nanjing in Shanghai's neighboring Jiangsu Province on Tuesday.
China Southern and Xiamen airlines also deployed charter flights to pick up medical teams from Wuhan.
"Our safety is guarded by your body and blood, our luck is ensured by your kind heart and great virtue, and our hope comes from your fearless belief," a China Eastern captain told medical staff in the cabin broadcast. Volunteers, airport staff and other passengers in Wuhan bid a grateful farewell at the airport. The captains and crew members also prepared a heroic welcome for returning doctors and nurses.
More medical professionals, including those from Shanghai, will return in the following days.
Members of the Shanghai East Hospital team bid farewell to their Wuhan counterparts before returning home.
The Shanghai East team plans to return in two batches. Eighteen support crews drove back with eight vehicles and two container trucks on Tuesday, while the others, including Huang, will fly back on a charter flight on Wednesday.
The team members include 31 doctors and nurses mainly from clinics specializing in respiratory infections and internal medicine, five are medical technicians, while others offer logistics support.
The team gathered in only two hours though none of the members had a day of rest since Chinese New Year on January 25. They brought 25 tents, which can house 300 outpatients a day, 40 isolation wards and an ICU for eight.
They've been mainly treating patients with mild symptoms at a makeshift hospital until the temporary hospital was closed on March 8.
As a pharmacist in charge of daily medicines for some 1,500 patients in the hospital, Huang worked 12 hours a day. He dispensed and adjusted medicines for each patient, He also made ward rounds with Gao Caiping, head nurse at Shanghai East Hospital.
Most of the patients had mild symptoms, but some were depressed, Huang said.
He conducted quiz games about novel coronavirus prevention among some of the patients to cheer them up. Some gifts they brought from Shanghai such as shampoo were used as prizes.
Local medical staff also organized patients to dance or take part in other activities during treatment. Huang said these measures were effective in raising their spirits.
When the last patient left the temporary hospital on March 8, the members celebrated on WeChat. All the male members sang a song to their female counterparts to celebrate the closure of the hospital as well as the International Women's Day.
Under their treatment, no patient died or relapsed and no medical staff got infected.
"You've had a hard time," Zhang Junjian, head of the temporary hospital, told Lei Han, leader of Shanghai East Hospital team, on Tuesday.
Hearing he would come home soon, Huang's wife was happy that her worries were over.
Huang said he applied to join the mission on Chinese New Year’s Eve though his wife was deeply concerned about the trip.
"During peace time, we've got few chances to fight for our country and this fight against the COVID-19 is a war that I should be involved in," Huang said, adding that he would definitely be back in Wuhan next year to see the cherry blossom.
Huang Guoxin (center), a senior pharmacist with the team from Shanghai East Hospital, at work at a temporary hospital in Wuhan.
