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The Invisible Victims of China’s Coronavirus Crisis
Patients at the outbreak’s epicenter with diseases other than COVID-19 are struggling to receive treatment.
Zhang Wanqing
Feb 24, 2020 4-min read
The day before the central Chinese city of Wuhan went into lockdown, Ye Bing received an ominous message from the hospital where his father-in-law was being treated for tuberculosis: He would have to leave.
“They were forcing all of the patients to leave the hospital, saying the government had ordered the wards to be cleared out to treat coronavirus patients,” Ye told Sixth Tone just over a month after Hubei’s provincial capital restricted the movement of some 14 million people to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Ye said Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital didn’t even suggest what to do with his father-in-law after he was discharged. They didn’t know which hospital to visit next, or what treatment to seek.
The COVID-19 epidemic that originated in Wuhan late last year has choked the city’s health system, killing over 2,600 people and infecting nearly 80,000 worldwide. To cope with the overwhelming number of patients infected with the coronavirus, the city has converted many of its general and specialist hospitals, as well as public venues, into facilities for treating COVID-19 cases.
Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital was one of the first to be repurposed, and there are currently 48 medical facilities in the city that have been designated for treating coronavirus patients. However, with the focus concentrated on containing the epidemic, patients with other diseases say they have struggled to get medical attention, becoming “invisible victims” of COVID-19...
Read More https://www.sixthtone.com/news/10052...navirus-crisis
Patients at the outbreak’s epicenter with diseases other than COVID-19 are struggling to receive treatment.
Zhang Wanqing
Feb 24, 2020 4-min read
The day before the central Chinese city of Wuhan went into lockdown, Ye Bing received an ominous message from the hospital where his father-in-law was being treated for tuberculosis: He would have to leave.
“They were forcing all of the patients to leave the hospital, saying the government had ordered the wards to be cleared out to treat coronavirus patients,” Ye told Sixth Tone just over a month after Hubei’s provincial capital restricted the movement of some 14 million people to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Ye said Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital didn’t even suggest what to do with his father-in-law after he was discharged. They didn’t know which hospital to visit next, or what treatment to seek.
The COVID-19 epidemic that originated in Wuhan late last year has choked the city’s health system, killing over 2,600 people and infecting nearly 80,000 worldwide. To cope with the overwhelming number of patients infected with the coronavirus, the city has converted many of its general and specialist hospitals, as well as public venues, into facilities for treating COVID-19 cases.
Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital was one of the first to be repurposed, and there are currently 48 medical facilities in the city that have been designated for treating coronavirus patients. However, with the focus concentrated on containing the epidemic, patients with other diseases say they have struggled to get medical attention, becoming “invisible victims” of COVID-19...
Read More https://www.sixthtone.com/news/10052...navirus-crisis