As coronavirus cases get priority in Wuhan hospitals, other patients are losing hope
- Thousands of people are not getting the treatment they need because medical resources have been diverted to fight outbreak
- One hospital says it can no longer offer transplant surgery as it doesn’t have enough doctors and blood products
University student Wan Ruyi was diagnosed with acute leukaemia in May. The 21-year-old has been in the Wuhan Union Hospital for the past 10 months, and now, severely ill, she is in dire need of a bone-marrow transplant.
“Wan has had three rounds of chemotherapy, but the last one in October wasn’t very successful, and the bone marrow aspiration she had on Sunday showed the treatment didn’t have the expected outcome,” said her mother, Wu Qiong.
Wuhan Union Hospital was one of the first designated to treat coronavirus patients, on January 21. It told the family it had stopped doing transplant surgery because there were not enough doctors and blood products. The family tried a hospital in Hebei province, but they were told to stay in Wuhan.
On Sunday, Wan was in so much pain and discomfort she said she wanted to die.
“Every single day in Hubei [province] makes me more helpless and desperate as my daughter continues to suffer in agony,” Wu said. “Her condition is getting more unstable.”