Overworked and testing positive, China’s medical staff under pressure on Covid front line

Name: Shanghai hospitals overwhelmed as Covid cases spike
Uploaded: 2023-01-07T22:00:08.000Z
Duration: 1 min 43 s
Description: Shanghai hospitals overwhelmed as Covid cases spike

According to one survey, 60 per cent of doctors and nurses who test positive are forced to keep working as understaffed hospitals struggle to cope

Prevalence of severe illness caused by Covid-19 prompts concern, including for pregnant women and their babies

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Hospitals around the country are suffering shortages of beds, staff and equipment. Photo: Reuters

Xinlu Liang

Published: 6:00am, 8 Jan 2023Updated: 6:21pm, 8 Jan 2023

Shawn Yang, a thoracic surgeon in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, had not touched a scalpel for days. Instead, he was helping to treat Covid-19 patients in the emergency room.

“We’ve been encountering some difficulties, because we’re all surgeons and we have to get familiar on the spot,” he said, adding he had recently taken emergency rescue training before being assigned to help in ER.

“I was excited to help treat Covid-19 patients but also worried that I couldn’t do it well.”

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Shanghai hospitals overwhelmed as Covid cases spike

Yang is one of millions of Chinese doctors and nurses who are battling unprecedented staff shortages to keep the health system running amid a Covid outbreak following Beijing’s decision last month to abandon its zero-Covid policy.

Staff at hospitals across the country are opening all wards and sending specialist doctors to help treat the influx of patients.

It has also become common practice for medical workers to treat patients with Covid-19 while infected with the virus themselves.

Doctors and nurses told the South China Morning Post that infections among patients and health workers had peaked, but severe understaffing remained a problem.