Hospital helps ICU patients connect with their loved ones

Shanghai Renji Hospital's west campus, which started closed-loop management for epidemic prevention and control on Jan 21, has been arranging for their patients in the intensive care units to communicate with their family members virtually.

The hospital was locked down after a logistics worker tested positive for COVID-19 on Jan 21. All staff, patients and their relatives have since been quarantined in the hospital to prevent the possible spread of the virus.

Xing Shunpeng, a doctor from the hospital's department of critical care medicine, said that families of the patients have been invited to do video calls with the patients twice every day since the afternoon of Jan 21. Each video call lasts between 10 and 15 minutes.

"The doctor will first introduce the patient's health situation and possible adjustments in the treatments and therapies, before leaving the patient to catch up with his or her loved ones," Xing said.

"Such live broadcasts allow families who were supposed to be on site with the patients for a certain duration on a daily basis to understand the patients' latest situation clearly," he said. "Also, we can feel that the patients' moods have improved because of this."

Cui Qin, head nurse of the hospital's department of critical care medicine, said that one of the 12 patients in the ICU is a middle-aged man from another city who went through a kidney transplant on Jan 20.

"His wife rushed back home to take care of two children after the surgery was completed. She said she was very touched that the hospital was so considerate for the patients and their families when the outbreak kept them apart," she said.

There were no new COVID-19 cases in Shanghai on Wednesday following the 16 that were discovered since Jan 21.