Treating critically ill patients still a challenge

After 25 days of using an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine, and 50 days of using a ventilator, a 35-year-old COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit of the east branch of People's Hospital of Wuhan University struggled back from the brink of death and showed his appreciation to all of the medical staff in a video on Monday.

Keeping Him Alive, the video about saving the critically ill patient, went viral. The patient in the video, using the pseudonym Xiaowei, has been continuously treated by medical teams from four provinces since Jan 26, and his vital signs are now stable.

With the situation progressing in Hubei, the treatment of patients in severe and critical condition is still a challenge for medical workers.

As of Tuesday, there were 1,137 novel coronavirus patients in China, including 113 in critical condition. Hubei still has 179 confirmed cases, 57 of whom are critically ill and all of whom are in its capital, Wuhan.

The critical patients in Wuhan will gradually be transferred to the Zhongfa Xincheng branch of Tongji Hospital, Wang Wei, head of the hospital affiliated with Tongji Medical College Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said on Tuesday.

With the withdrawal of outside medical teams from Hubei, local medical staff will take over treatment at the hospital, Wang said.

At present, Tongji has 90 infected patients, two-thirds of whom are severely or critically ill, and some of them have other diseases that make treatment more difficult, according to Wang.

"We will bring together the hospital's top multidisciplinary team of experts, increase the input of medical personnel to ensure the quality of precise medical treatment of every patient and save the last patients at all costs," Wang said.

Han Ding, vice-president of Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing, said that the medical team at his hospital has transferred all patients in severe or critical condition to local medical staff in Tongji.

"There is still room for improvement in the care aspect. The treatment of the novel coronavirus was over in these patients, but they cannot be discharged immediately because of the severe lung damage they sustained that was caused by the virus," Han said.

Many patients also have other diseases, such as cerebrovascular diseases and malignant tumors, and these patients will need follow-up treatment.

Peking Union had sent 186 doctors and nurses to support Wuhan. They took charge of an emergency ICU unit of the Zhongfa Xincheng branch of Tongji Hospital during the outbreak and treated 109 critically ill patients until the unit closed on April 12.

The medical team from Peking Union returned to Beijing on Wednesday. It was the last medical team to leave Hubei.

Twenty experts and 88 disease control specialists, including five from Peking Union, will remain in Wuhan to supervise the treatment of severe and critical patients and the epidemiological investigation.

Relatively speaking, Wuhan should be the safest city in the country now, said Li Taisheng, the leader of the second batch of medical teams from Peking Union who will remain in the city as one of the experts.

Li noted that the disease control and clinical medical systems in Wuhan have been improved, and susceptible people in the city who were cured should have developed antibodies. According to a study of the SARS epidemic, the protective effect of antibodies on individuals ranged from six months to two years.

Li and four others from Peking Union will continue to work at Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital and Jinyintan Hospital to focus on the treatment of patients with COVID-19 complications and consult on difficult cases.