Doctor visits capital to thank medical staff

A doctor from Wuhan, Hubei province, who recovered from COVID-19 after being hospitalized for more than three months, arrived at China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing on Sunday to express gratitude to the doctors and nurses who pulled him back from the brink of death.

"I never had the chance to see what the doctors and nurses from Beijing looked like when they provided care to me during my most difficult times in hospital, and I had always wanted to see them in person and say thanks to them," Yi Fan, a cardiologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, said on Sunday afternoon.

After Yi regained consciousness in an intensive care ward in Tongji Hospital in Wuhan in March, all he could see were doctors and nurses sealed in thick protective gowns, he said.

Yi is one of the thousands of doctors and nurses in China who got infected with the novel coronavirus, but his situation caught particular attention from many people in China in part due to the circulation of a picture online of his face after it darkened due to the drugs used for treatment in April.

Yi got infected with the virus while treating patients at Wuhan Central Hospital and was hospitalized in late January. His condition worsened, so he was transferred in critical condition in early March to Tongji Hospital, where a team of medical workers from China-Japan Friendship Hospital provided care for him.

During his treatment, he was placed on an intensive life-support system that included ECMO, a device that functions as the heart and lungs for patients with organ failure.

Wang Chen, the president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences who guided Yi's treatment, said Yi was in very poor condition and his treatment was highly risky. He said Yi's recovery is a miracle in clinical medicine.

"Yi was a COVID-19 patient and is also a doctor, and we felt it was like trying to rescue our comrades who fought the pandemic together with us," he said. "Although his hope of recovery seemed slim, we tried our best."

"Successful treatment of Yi was also a great encouragement for all other doctors. It gave them more confidence when treating other severely ill COVID-19 patients."

Yi said he could find no words to express his gratitude to the doctors and nurses from Beijing who risked their lives saving him and many other COVID-19 patients in Wuhan during the height of the epidemic.

"I want to thank them all and welcome them to come back to Wuhan to have a visit," he said.

Earlier this year, about 43,000 medical workers from across China, including 164 from China-Japan Friendship Hospital, were sent to work on the front line in Hubei province, the area hit hardest by the COVID-19 epidemic in China.

"I think I have been recovering quite well and gaining strength," said Yi, who has been rehabilitating at home since being discharged from hospital in May. "I hope I can continue to be a surgeon after I am totally recovered. In case my health does not permit that, I hope I can continue to be a doctor and do whatever possible to serve patients."