Behind the masks: the volunteers giving everything in the coronavirus crisis
- Some try to find help for desperate people while others assist patients with a medical trauma but everybody is doing their best to get Wuhan through the epidemic
- Death and fatigue are constant companions, testing doctors, nurses and support staff to their limits
Some callers were panicked patients or their families begging for admission to hospital and for an ambulance. Some poured out their grief, helplessness and desperation over the telephone as the volunteers tried their best to connect them to medical services.
“Some callers were angry, and they were yelling and wailing in despair,” said Liu Xiaofeng, a volunteer and retired emergency department director of Wuhan’s Tianyou Hospital.
“In our lunch break, some of us would just stare down at our meal and sit in silence.”
The stress was so great that there were no words and some wanted to quit the service. They told Liu that they’d rather be sent to fight the disease instead of just taking phone calls.
The sense of powerlessness was overwhelming and Liu was not immune to it. She recalled one case where she couldn’t get a family the help they repeatedly asked for – then the calls stopped. The family called again a few days later but this time to have someone come to pick up the body of a relative who had died.