Emergency team rushes to tackle COVID-19

From shift forms, discharged case files to medical consultation reports, all record the days and nights in which the ICU medical team from Jiangsu Province Hospital spent supporting Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, the hardest-hit Chinese city by COVID-19.

On the evening of Feb 12, the hospital received an urgent notice asking for a medical team to be quickly built up to take over an ICU ward area of Wuhan No 1 Hospital. The team was formed in one night－more than 200 medical professionals and management staff members from departments including ICU and respiratory and critical care medicine went on the trip to Wuhan the next day.

Qiao Li, a chief physician from the hospital's emergency center, celebrated her 43th birthday on the flight to Wuhan, with her colleagues' blessing.

"It was a meaningful birthday," Qiao said, according to a report by the Xinhua News Agency.

The team arrived in Wuhan at 11 pm on Feb 13 and three hours later they finished sorting and counting medical supplies.

At 3 am, the team had a meeting in their hotel. Five hours later, Liu Yun, head of the team, who is the vice-president of Jiangsu Province Hospital, went to Wuhan No 1 Hospital for a working meeting, and asked to lead her team to take over the wards on the same day.

At 4 pm on Feb 14, the first batch of 16 doctors and 24 nurses from Liu's team entered the wards and all 61 beds were filled within 2 hours.

"Even though the conditions are hard, we are at the battlefield against the pandemic, we need to win," Liu said to her team members.

On the fourth day after taking over the wards, a COVID-19 patient was in critical condition with breathing difficulties and progressive dropping of oxygen saturation level and blood pressure.

With years of experience, Qiao used less than 1 minute to manage arterial puncture to open the "path of life" for the patient in time, even though she was wearing three layers of gloves, goggles and protective garment.

The ICU ward that the medical team from Jiangsu Province Hospital took over at Wuhan No 1 Hospital is the only one in the hospital. To treat and cure the patients in severe conditions is the key to lower the death rate of COVID-19 patients.

Qi Xu, head of a treatment group in the hospital's medical team, said there was no room to retreat for them because all the patients were in the most dangerous condition.

"As the wall between death and the patients, we need to try our best to fight and win," Qi said.

"We created 15 specialist groups including tracheal intubation, and when we encountered specific problems we would follow the specialist group's opinion," Qi said.

According to Qi, the medical team also got assistance from their hospital in Jiangsu, as the experts would offer remote consultation about the COVID-19 patients at any time.

To make sure of the pertinence and continuity of the patients' treatment, the doctors needed to keep in touch with all updated information about the patients. That means all the information from the wards that were checked four times a day, each remote consultation and every change in patient condition, needed to be recorded by nurses.

According to Song Jin, head nurse of the team, more than 100 nursing staff members in the team were divided into several specialized teams, including airway management, deep vein catheterization and pressure ulcer nursing.

Song said grouping them can refine the treatment on patients and enhance the efficiency of treating the patients. "We couldn't stop, even for a minute."

On March 19, all COVID-19 patients that the team received in Wuhan No 1 Hospital were discharged. Four days later, the first batch of the team went to help the ICU wards in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital.

On April 13, the team left with seven members to remain and join in the national medical team in Wuhan to treat seriously ill COVID-19 patients.

According to Liu, on the day the team arrived in Wuhan, they set up eight working groups including medical treatment, nursing and infection control, and 11 temporary Party groups were formed at the same time.

The medical team set a standard for workflow－the patients were divided into different sections according to their severity and there was clear standards for diagnosis, examination, treatment and discharge.

"It's the sense of mission that supports us. As medical workers, it's our duty to save lives," Liu said, according to Xinhua. "We are always ready when the country needs us."