Families provide care at live-in hospital

A hospital in Harbin offers relatives of brain-injured patients a chance to provide personal care in a homelike setting with family rooms and a communal kitchen.

Thirty rooms in the brain injury recovery center at Heilongjiang Rehabilitation Hospital are set aside for patients who are in a vegetative state and require two people to look after each of them night and day.

Most family members choose to leave their homes and move to the hospital in the capital of Heilongjiang province to give their relatives the best possible chance of recovery.

Wang Desheng, the director of the center, said it has treated more than 2,000 patients from Heilongjiang, Jilin, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region since it was founded in 1991.

"Although it's a difficult and painful process, about one-third of them separated themselves from their vegetative state and regained consciousness through the treatment in the center and the endeavors of their family," Wang said.

Because the patients need a long time for treatment, the center is always near capacity.

"We need two to three months to judge the possibility of recovering consciousness for a patient in a vegetative state," said Wang, who has been at the center for 20 years, since his graduation from college. "If there is no progress after more than three months' treatment, it means there is little hope from a medical standpoint."

Most of the family members insist their loved ones will wake up one day even after doctors told them there is little hope. Many persevere, even though the cost of medical treatment is huge.

Zhu Shanyi, 18, was a senior in high school in Daqing when he was involved a serious traffic accident in October 2013. He remained in a coma after two months of treatment in a local hospital, so his parents took him to the center for help.

After a month of treatment, Zhu opened his eyes but couldn't do any other things. His parents and his grandparents are looking after him. Even so, the family has spent most of its savings.

"We received lots of support from our relatives and friends," said Zhu Zhifan, his father. "There is better therapeutic method and medicine here, so we will try our best to keep our son treated in the center."

"My wife asked for leave from work for a long time, but I can't," Zhu said. "I can only come to Harbin twice a month and stay here for only two days."

In order to earn money, Zhu must keep his job. His wife and father-in-law took up the task of looking after Zhu Shanyi.

"We will never give up our hope that the doctor can cure our boy," he said. "Every time when we found even a little progress with him, we all felt quite excited."

In another room, there is a woman who has spent 10 years in the center. The woman, surnamed Liu, has been in a vegetative state since a traffic accident at the age of 44.

Liu Guozhi, her husband, gave up his job in Shenyang after the accident and stayed in Harbin to look after her. He has seldom left the center except to buy food in the supermarket once a week.

The center provides a public kitchen, which brings great convenience to the caregivers.

After the long treatment, his wife can eat some soft food, but still can't stand or speak. Every day, Liu helps his wife do rehabilitation training, and he insists that one day she will stand by herself and even walk as before.

There are only five doctors and eight nurses in the center to undertake the heavy work.

"In my first day working here, I was shocked by the scene, even though I had been emotionally ready for the special job," said Ding Liang, who began to work as a nurse in the center after she graduated in 2009.

After six years in the center, Ding has adapted to the work, and she told China Daily that she will never give up the special job.

"The patients need us to give them a skilled nursing facility, which is good for their recuperation and to lessen their pain," Ding said. "Every time I received information from the patients who had improved a lot after they left the center, I felt quite happy and proud."