Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

I don’t think there is a single hospital in all Wuhan that has been hit harder than Central Hospital. In terms of its location, Central Hospital is located very close to the Huanan Seafood Market, so it is the hospital that had the earliest contact with novel coronavirus patients. That first wave of patients with severe symptoms all came here for treatment. Back when people had absolutely no knowledge of this virus, the doctors at Central Hospital basically became a human first line of defense. It was only after, one after another, all these doctors began collapsing from the illness that they (and their administrators) finally woke up to the realization of just how horrific this new virus truly was. However, it was already too late.

My second brother is a longtime patient at this hospital. He told me that Central Hospital is very well regarded; it used to be connected to the Wuhan Second Hospital. He reminded me that his wife even had an operation there. As soon as he said that I realized that the Second Hospital branch on Nanjing Road where I used to go for checkups when I was younger is actually Central Hospital; they just changed the name. Second Hospital’s earlier incarnation was the Hankou Catholic Hospital, which had a 140-year history. In my novel Water Beneath Time [4] Water Beneath Time ( Shui zai shijian zhi xia ) is a 2008 award-winning novel by Fang Fang. The novel begins in 1920 and follows the life of a Han opera singer in Hankou, tracing the tales of love and violence that follow her life. I even wrote about this hospital being bombed by the Japanese during the war. The original Second Hospital still stands at its original location; it is now a branch hospital of Central Hospital. I heard that more than 200 medical workers from Central Hospital have been infected by the coronavirus; many of them are suffering from severe symptoms. All of them are considered among the first wave of patients infected by the novel coronavirus. A while back there was a report that stated that after Li Wenliang was censured for speaking out, “Starting from January 2, the hospital requested that no hospital employees publicly discuss this illness; they were prohibited from posting any photos or written materials that could be later considered evidence of this virus. Only when changing shifts are medical employees permitted to verbally exchange patient information to fellow caregivers to provide for continuity of care. When patients came in for medical help, doctors were forced to remain completely silent about this possible outbreak.”

Another news agency, Chutian New Media, also published an article about Central Hospital, which included some illustrated text, which read: “Wuhan Central Hospital has already become one of the hospitals with the highest number of infected workers. Currently there are more than 200 medical workers infected, including all three of the hospital’s assistant directors, and the hospital’s director of nursing care; the directors of several of their specialty clinics are currently relying on extracorporeal life support to keep them alive; numerous chief physicians are on respirators, and many of the front-line medical caregivers have severe symptoms that have left them teetering between life and death. The ER has been hit particularly hard; the Cancer Ward has lost 20 medical workers… the losses go on, but they are too many to enumerate. After suffering wave after wave of panic and heartbreak, we all know that one of us might be next.” This report is a bit more detailed than the previous one. I have no way of going to Central Hospital in person to authenticate these numbers, but whether or not these figures are completely accurate, we do know without question that the human losses at Central Hospital have been particularly devastating.

During the early days of the outbreak, they experienced “the incredible weight of being.” I can’t help but wonder: If these doctors knew the disease was infectious and many of them indeed became infected, then why didn’t they take protective measures? Why let themselves be drawn in like moths to a flame? When a hospital experiences such devastating numbers of deaths, isn’t there anyone who feels guilt or accepts any responsibility? You would expect those who made minor errors to resign out of shame and those who took major missteps to face some sort of punishment from their superiors. You can’t just write everything off by simply hiding behind the fact that “this is a new virus so we didn’t have enough knowledge about how to respond!” That is not an excuse. The Chinese people have always had trouble bringing themselves to repent; but when so many lives are dangling before you, we need people to stand up and take responsibility: You people, that’s right, you! Stand up and repent! Today someone posted an appeal online that we should allow Central Hospital to temporarily shut down so all the employees there can take a break. They have lost so many of their own employees to this illness, and many more remain critically ill; the psychological trauma for those still on the job is simply too much for them to bear.

The toll of 20 days of delays, 20 days of lies, is much costlier than simply the number of deaths. The quarantine has now been in place for 40 days; the deadliest days are behind us, but the most difficult days may still be waiting for us ahead.

The people of Wuhan continue to be quite depressed. Another doctor friend of mine said that all the sadness and depression have left people feeling uncertain about the future, causing people to easily slip into a state of psychological insecurity. Besides this, there is still the issue of the people’s livelihood; most people currently don’t have any new income coming in, which has further contributed to their feeling of insecurity. They don’t know when they’ll be able to get back to work and have no idea when they will finally be able to go outside again, which has left everyone feeling lost. When someone is left fumbling in the dark and has no power to control their own fate, they end up losing their most fundamental sense of security. During times like these they need something to hold onto in order give them the sense that everything will be all right; for instance, they need to have an explanation. When the outbreak was at its worst, no one had the time or energy to carry out investigations or worry about who was responsible for what was happening; instead, everyone tried to be understanding and put all their reservations aside. Now that things are starting to ease up, all those questions we have been harboring inside are starting to come to the surface, and now people want answers. Then there are some aspects to all this that seem to have been addressed very quickly; for instance, that incident concerning the female inmate who went to Beijing after being released from prison, or the controversy surrounding Li Yuehua’s practicing medicine without a license. These all occurred in the middle of this outbreak, yet the government was able to take swift action. However, what about those issues that the public really wants an answer to? Take, for example, the case of Dr. Li Wenliang: They have been investigating this for so long now, but where is the explanation we have been waiting for?

The case of Dr. Li Wenliang is indeed a knot that needs to be untangled. In actuality, the multitude of deaths suffered at Central Hospital is another knot. If we don’t untangle these knots, how can the knots inside our hearts be unraveled? Over time these knots become tighter and more complicated, just as the scars deep inside our hearts expand and reach deeper. Psychological services experts say that it is only after you have removed yourself from a place of immediate danger that the true trauma begins to rise to the surface. To put it plainly: You need to offer an explanation about what happened to Dr. Li Wenliang. You need to give us an explanation about what went wrong at Central Hospital; all of us deserve to hear that.