BEIJING — In more than three decades of emergency medicine, Beijing-based doctor Howard Bernstein said, he has never seen anything like this.
“The ICU is full,” as are the emergency department, the fever clinic and other wards, he said.
“A lot of them got admitted to the hospital. They’re not getting better in a day or two, so there’s no flow, and therefore people keep coming to the ER, but they can’t go upstairs into hospital rooms,” he said. “They’re stuck in the ER for days.”
Sonia Jutard-Bourreau, 48, chief medical officer at the private Raffles Hospital in Beijing, said patient numbers are five to six times their normal levels, and patients’ average age has shot up by about 40 years to over 70 in the space of a week.
“It’s always the same profile,” she said. “That is most of the patients have not been vaccinated.”
The patients and their relatives visit Raffles because local hospitals are “overwhelmed,” she said, and because they wish to buy Paxlovid, the Pfizer-made COVID treatment, which many places, including Raffles, are running low on.
Elsewhere in China, medical staff told Reuters that resources are already stretched to the breaking point in some cases, as COVID and sickness levels amongst staff have been particularly high.
One nurse based in the western city of Xian said 45 of 51 nurses in her department and all staff in the emergency department have caught the virus in recent weeks.
“There are so many positive cases among my colleagues,” said the 22-year-old nurse, surnamed Wang. “Almost all the doctors are down with it.”
“I worry that if the patient appears to be agitated, you have to restrain them, but you cannot easily do it alone,” she said. “It’s not a great situation to be in.”
MORTALITY RATE “POLITICAL”
The doctors who spoke to Reuters said they were most worried about the elderly, tens of thousands of whom may die, according to estimates from experts.
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