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Shanghai tells city hospitals to reopen emergency wards after Covid-19 lockdowns see patients turned away
- A series of incidents, including a nurse who died after being refused treatment at her own hospital, have triggered a public backlash
- The city’s public health authorities say they are setting up a ‘mechanism’ to ensure people could get treatment
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Shanghai public health authorities have told all hospitals and clinics across the city to reopen emergency wards after reports that people were being denied access to treatment during the citywide coronavirus lockdown.
The order followed after several incidents that have provoked widespread anger amid tightened virus controls that have almost exhausted medical resources in China’s commercial and financial capital.
“All hospitals and clinics across the city have been required to reopen their emergency wards to citizens,” Wu Qianyu, a senior official with the Shanghai health commission, said on Saturday.
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“A mechanism that connects the neighbourhoods with medical institutions has been set up in nearly all districts to facilitate medical treatment for the residents.”
Her remarks were seen as an attempt to assure the city’s 25 million citizens that the municipal government would try to prevent further incidents of people being denied treatment.
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On March 23, a 49-year-old nurse who worked at Shanghai East Hospital died of asthma after she was turned away from her own hospital as a result of lockdown measures.
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