The Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital (the 6th Hospital) suspended medical services, including surgery, due to a surge of inhouse COVID-19 infections.
The 6th Hospital went into lockdown on March 7 and many scheduled operations were suspended due to anesthesiologists and nurses being isolated in the outbreak.
As of March 18, the lockdown is still ongoing, and patients are also anxious to know when the lockdown will be lifted.
On March 13, the hospital’s official WeChat account announced the suspension of service for outpatients, emergency services, and nucleic acid tests.
Surgeries Suspended
Wang Yi’s son broke his arm and was brought to the hospital on March 5. They have been restricted inside the hospital since.Wang mentioned that there are more than a dozen surgical patients yet to be operated on, but the hospital has said nothing about when the surgeries will be carried out.
Wang’s wife said that their son was scheduled to be operated on March 8, but when the hospital was closed on March 7, his surgery was also called off.
The doctor told them it could be delayed for a couple of days, but when many doctors were also locked inside the hospital, no one has updated them on when the operation could be performed.
The Wangs were worried about missing the best time for an operation.
ER Chaos
Chaos emerged in the hospital on the same day that the facility went into lockdown. Medical staff weren’t prepared for the lockdown and a viral video exposed thhe scene of emergency room (ER) staff getting physical with each other.The Epoch Times called the hospital to verify claims about chaos in the ER but the head of the hospital’s publicity department was unable to comment on the matter.
A Chinese Weibo netizen, Twilight String 007, wrote on March 13 that his wife, a frontline nurse in the hospital’s ER, was told all staff needed to be tested for COVID-19 during the early morning of March 6.
Many people in the hospital tested positive for the virus, something that the hospital tried to conceal.
But the netizen alleged that those infected were relocated to the ER, which lacked the necessary facilities and materials for infectious disease patients.
According to the post, the ER became overcrowded.
“On March 12, without proper preventive protection, nurses refused to enter areas designated for infected patients, and were attacked by doctors,” the netizen claimed.
‘Trapped in Death Valley’
Du Ming, an ER patient in the hospital, told The Epoch Times that there were 63 patients on the third floor waiting for surgery. He himself was suffering a hand fracture and had been waiting for surgery for more than 10 days.“There’s no answer on our treatments … no doctor comes to care for our injuries. All we have had is IV saline. No one received any treatment,” Du said.
The patients fruitlessly sought help from the Party Office in the 6th Hospital, the city hotline, and so on. “They don’t care whether or not you receive the treatment, as long as they get to keep their jobs,” Du said.
Du said the deferral of surgeries has come with consequences: the deterioration of people’s health in a hospital now considered a high-risk COVID-19 area. For himself, his hands have worsened.
“Everyone is low-spirited; most people here are only talking about death. It feels like we are at the brink of death, trapped in death valley,” he said.
Du emphasized that the 6th Hospital has no plan for when they will be operated on or any other options.
“Communication with other hospitals is blocked,” he added.
All interviewees were given pseudonyms for fear of reprisal from the regime.
