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IN NEED OF TREATMENT: A seriously injured quake victim being taken to hospital after arriving by train in Xian, in north-west China's Shaanxi province, from the disaster zone. -- PHOTO: XINHUA
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CHENGDU - PATIENTS will no longer be parked at the outdoor carpark of Renmin Hospital.
After days of sleeping in wooden shacks at the carpark, the quake victims were moved indoors yesterday.
Space was freed up because charter flights took more than a hundred to prosperous Guangzhou, giving the more than 20 hospitals in Chengdu some much-needed breathing space.
At Huaxi Hospital, the largest in Sichuan province with more than 4,000 beds, hundreds flanked the corridors.
But it was at least better than the mid-sized Third People's Hospital, which has just over 700 beds.
The influx of disaster victims has forced the hospital to line its corridors with beds. When that was not enough, its basement carpark was turned into a makeshift giant ward, with patients sleeping on foam mattresses on the floor.
'There are too many patients for Chengdu to handle,' Dr Chen Qin, 53, head of the orthopaedic department at Third People's, told The Straits Times.
'We need the support of the rest of China.'
Besides Guangzhou, patients are also being moved to Chongqing municipality and neighbouring Shaanxi province.
As the Sichuan provincial capital, Chengdu is the treatment headquarters for the 220,000 injured. Serious cases are airlifted from the hard-hit zones to Huaxi Hospital immediately, while the less chronic ones are treated first at places like Mianyang and Dujiangyan before being moved here for surgery.
The non-stop action has left medical staff exhausted.
'I am very busy, I am very busy,' deputy head nurse An Jingjing, 28, of Huaxi's orthopaedic ward screamed into her cellphone. The orthopaedic wards are the most overwhelmed, with most of the victims suffering fractures.
'I have not slept much since the quake on May 12. It is a constant struggle,' she told The Straits Times.
Transport supervisor Li Zhixue, 40, at Renmin, who is in charge of rushing patients in ambulances to the hospitals, said he has been sleeping just two hours a day for the past 10 days.
Dr Chen said he has not left the hospital since the quake.
The strain is felt even as doctors and nurses from other parts of China - such as Beijing, Jilin and Hong Kong - are rushed here to assist.
But despite the pressure-cooker atmosphere, the hospitals are not chaotic.
Long and regularly updated name lists of patients, with details like race, hometown and date of admission, are put up at entrances to help relatives find their missing loved ones.
Volunteers are in abundance, with an injured child having at times as many as five for playmates.
Patients' names and descriptions of their injuries are displayed prominently above their beds.
And despite the crowded conditions, patients and their families are not complaining.
'All medical care is free, and so is the food. It is a squeeze, but I have no complaints,' said factory worker Tang Feifeng, 33.
Farmer Feng Lanchun, 32, whose house was destroyed, added: 'The nurses and doctors are angels. We are just glad to be alive.'
Even non-quake patients who were forced into the corridors accepted the situation.
Factory worker Lin Yunxiao, 19, who had been warded for over a month after his leg was smashed in a workplace accident, was pushed to a corner behind a pillar.
He said: 'Of course I prefer the wards. But I have to make do. These people are worse off than me.'
shpeh@sph.com.sg
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