Cross infection at China’s coronavirus epicentre?
- Li Ruiqi’s mother went into a Wuhan hospital for an operation. Now she has the infection but nowhere to go for treatment
- One doctor says many medical staff lacked an awareness of infectious diseases and were unprepared for crisis
Li said there when her mother went in for the operation there were no warnings about preventing infection from other patients and staff.
“At the time [of the surgery], no medical staff advised us to be careful about the coronavirus, nor did they take safety precautions,” Li said.
A more immediate problem for the family is that despite her diagnosis, Zhang, a diabetic, cannot get admitted to a hospital in the city, where the medical system is overwhelmed by cases.
“How long do we have to wait for admittance? Do we need to take the patient to the emergency room and cause a scene to make a difference?” Li wrote in a widely shared social media post.
Officials in Wuhan and at the provincial level in Hubei province, where the city is located, have been heavily criticised for failing to take measures that could have helped prevent the spread of the virus, playing down the impact of transmission between people.
It was not until January 20 that respiratory specialist Zhong Nanshan, who heads a national expert panel dealing with the crisis, revealed that medical staff had been infected, confirming human-to-human transmission.
Lu Xiaohong, a doctor at Wuhan No 5 Hospital, said that as early as December 25 she had heard about two medical staff in the city being quarantined with an unknown viral pneumonia, China Youth Daily reported.
She helped her hospital to set up a separate ward to diagnose patients with fever and warned a nearby high school principal to cancel holiday remedial sessions for students, according to the report.
“Many doctors were not prepared as they didn’t have experience with infectious diseases,” Lu was quoted as saying. “Even doctors lacked vigilance, we were taking a complete beating in this situation.”
The doctor then fell ill with pneumonia on January 12 after he treated a coronavirus patient.
“We were asked to not spread information on the virus online, the department heads told us. Later… I personally treated a patient. Her family was infected and I was infected,” the doctor was quoted as saying.
