- Robin Brant
- BBC reporter from Shanghai
image source,Donghai Hospital
Donghai is one of the largest elderly care hospitals in Shanghai.
Authorities are grappling with what appears to be a cluster of coronavirus outbreaks at a large elderly care hospital in Shanghai, a case that reflects the severity of the outbreak in China’s largest city.
Shanghai has not reported any deaths since the latest round of the outbreak.
But staff at Shanghai’s Donghai Elderly Care Hospital described to the BBC the dire situation they faced and how they struggled to help dozens of elderly patients, some of whom have died.
A nurse told the BBC the first positive cases of Covid-19 were detected at the hospital three weeks ago. The hospital is one of the largest of its kind in Shanghai.
Since then, the hospital has been put under lockdown, and a team of experts from the Shanghai Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been working hard to control the spread of the virus.
Another paramedic who was recruited to work at the hospital last week told the BBC she had seen a patient die and had heard of a colleague dealing with another dead patient.
But the staff also said that because of the high number of infections, it is difficult to say whether the deceased died from the new crown.
The nurse told the BBC she worked and slept in hospital before being transferred to an isolation facility. Since then, she said, a colleague told her the situation had gotten “worse and worse”, with “new cases every day”.
She claimed that medical staff and experts sent by the Shanghai government were also infected, with the total infected there in the hundreds.
She told the BBC, “At first, we were just working as usual, but then they started locking down the wards and the leaders told us it was much worse.”
She also said that some patients refused to wear masks.
A paramedic who has been working at the hospital this week told the BBC she saw “pretty poor hygiene” when she got here.
Video taken at the hospital and sent to the BBC appeared to show bins overflowing in at least one area of the hospital, with bags of rubbish strewn across the corridors.
Screenshots from the video show that there are many garbage bags and wheelchairs in the corridor of Donghai Hospital.
In an outdoor area of the hospital, the trash can overflowed.
Meanwhile, on social media, some people complained that they were unable to contact relatives living in the hospital.
One man told the BBC his grandmother was in hospital but it was difficult to know her condition. He initially contacted a paramedic who was unable to help after he tested positive and was placed in isolation.
The man said he was unable to speak to his grandmother on the phone shortly after the lockdown began on Monday. When he called, the staff who answered the phone were also unable to provide any information about her meal and medication arrangements, he said.
The BBC tried to contact Donghai Aged Care Hospital, the Pudong New Area Health Commission and the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, but no response.
The BBC contacted a nearby funeral home, but it could not say whether it had received any deceased patients from the hospital. We also contacted the Shanghai Foreign Affairs Office for comment, but did not respond.
In multiple public statements by the authorities, the hospital’s address was confirmed to have confirmed cases, although it did not specify its name. The address has been mentioned nine times in official case reports over the past two weeks.
struggling healthcare system
At the same time there is other evidence that Shanghai’s medical system is struggling to cope with the growing demand.
On Thursday, the Pudong New Area Health Commission formally apologized to the family of a 62-year-old man. The man had an asthma attack, but the ambulance that was close at hand refused to provide emergency treatment, and the man died. The paramedic who refused to transport the patient and provided an automated external defibrillator has been suspended.
Shanghai is China’s largest city with a population of nearly 25 million.
The government plans to seal off the eastern part of Shanghai and test all residents, and then seal and test the west of Shanghai to stop the spread of the Omikron variant.
Halfway through the nine-day city-wide lockdown, Pudong was originally scheduled to reopen on Friday, but in fact strict restrictions were still in place after Friday, and some test results were delayed, meaning that many areas here and millions are still under lockdown.
A week before the lockdown was imposed, officials said Shanghai was too big and too important to China’s economy to be locked down like other cities like Wuhan, Xi’an and Shenzhen.
But on April 1, Ma Chunlei, secretary-general of the Shanghai Municipal Government, said, “Our understanding is insufficient… and our preparations are not sufficient.”
He also said, “We sincerely accept everyone’s criticism and are working hard to improve.” This is a rare official admission of mistakes.