Military medics' frontline role fighting COVID-19

The three military medical teams started to work at three Wuhan hospitals separately to treat patients on the second day after arriving: the army medical team joined the Jinyintan Hospital and took 83 patients within 48 hours; the navy medical team took over work at the ICU wards at the Wuhan Hankou Hospital; the air force team joined Wuchang Hospital and started to operate nucleic acid tests.

On Feb 4, Huoshenshan Hospital took the first batch of patients with 1,000 beds available and later 1,200 medical staff members helped the Guanggu branch of the Maternal and Child Hospital of Hubei Province and expanded the wards to arrange 800 beds for patients.

Zhao Yuying, head of a ward area in Huoshenshan Hospital, led her team to take care of 24 patients in severe condition, the first batch received by the hospital. She set up a WeChat group and answered all questions from her patients. She replied to more than 300 WeChat messages each day, sometimes until 3 am.

A 64-year-old patient urinated six times in less than an hour; a 90-year-old woman couldn't speak or understand Mandarin; a 56-year-old woman who had a glioma surgery half a year ago vomited once she ate the medicine－Zhao had to deal with all the problems.

"Companionship is a useful recipe," Zhao told Xinhua.

When Chen Jing, head nurse of ICU wards in Huoshenshan Hospital, was cleaning the sputum inside a patient's mouth, the patient suddenly coughed heavily and the sputum was spouted onto Chen's protective mask. She didn't say anything but cleaned it calmly.

"What the patients are afraid of most is that nobody care about them," Chen said to her nurses and kept bringing warmth to the patients.

Chu Liyun, head nurse at the Guanggu branch of the Maternal and Child Hospital of Hubei Province always granted whatever she was asked. A 96-year-old patient with the surname Hu told Xinhua that the voice of Chu was so beautiful that once Chu asked her to drink the traditional Chinese medicine, "It didn't feel that bitter."

While life in Wuhan was gradually getting back to normal, the military medical team was the last batch of medical teams to leave the city on the morning of April 16. Many of the members didn't even have a chance to try the local snack reganmian, hot dry noodles, or have a look at the blooming cherry blossoms.