An 85-year-old woman is discharged from a hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, on April 5, 2020, after being treated for the novel coronavirus for 52 days. [Photo provided to China Daily]
An 85-year-old woman was discharged from a hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Sunday after being treated for the novel coronavirus for 52 days.
The woman surnamed Yu was diagnosed with the virus on Feb 13. Her condition deteriorated quickly because she also suffered from high blood pressure. After her condition worsened, she was transferred to Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital on March 13.
When she arrived at the hospital's intensive care unit she had been relying on a ventilator to help her breath for three weeks, Li Jinhai, head of the medical team in charge of Yu's treatment, said.
Li is a member of the medical team sent from Jiangsu province to aid Wuhan.
"I rated the difficulty of treating Yu as 4.5 on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being the easiest and 5 the most challenging. The longer people are attached to ventilators, the more difficult it is to detach them from the machines because their bodies become dependent on them. Also, using ventilators can also cause repeated infections and pneumonia that can lead to death," Li said.
An 85-year-old woman is discharged from a hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, on April 5, 2020, after being treated for the novel coronavirus for 52 days. [Photo provided to China Daily]
So the team's goal was to detach the ventilator from Yu as soon as possible. They then started to carefully adjust her medication and the function of the ventilator. "It was really a good sign to see the role of the ventilator changing from supporting Yu's life to just helping her to breathe better," he said.
On March 28, the team decided to detach the ventilator after detailed assessment. The process went smoothly and Yu started to breathe on her own again. What's more, she smiled, Li said.
"In the battle against death, we've gradually found hope and felt the joy after winning," Li wrote in his diary on that day.
With further care from the team, Yu fully recovered and tested negative for the virus. She was one of the oldest patients discharged by the medical team from Jiangsu.
By Sunday morning, the medical team sent from Jiangsu at the Jinyintan Hospital has treated 48 novel coronavirus patients in severe conditions. Of them, 11 have been discharged while the conditions of 15 others have improved. Another three patients have been successfully detached from ventilators, said the team.
