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10 / Coronavirus Specials

Pandemic Pushes Chronically

Ill Patients to Back of Queue

Chronic disease patients in Wuhan faced severe difficulty receiving treat-
ment when the city was sealed off due to the coronavirus pandemic. Volun-
teers lent them a helping hand

By Savoki Zhang in Jiangsu & Coco Zhang in Shaanxi

ithout hemodialysis,
death for her is only
“Wa matter of time,”
wrote Wang Gongbao in his post on
Weibo, a Chinese social media plat-
form, on February 1, 2020, pleading
for help for his sick sister.
Wang’s sister, who suffers from
chronic renal failure, lives in Xian-
tao, a small city only 100km from
Wuhan. She was among thousands
of patients with chronic diseases
who were in urgent need of life-
sustaining treatment or medication,
while nearly all medical resources
were deployed to contain the coro-
navirus pandemic.
“My sister used to receive regular
hemodialysis at the No.1 People’s
Hospital of Xiantao before she was
tested positive for the novel coro- Visitors are wearing masks in a hospital in Baoij, Shaanxi during the COVID-19
navirus on January 28,” says Wang. pandemic.
“The hospital then refused to offer Although Wang’s sister was ad- outbreak sickened over 82,000 and
her dialysis.” mitted to a hospital after being diag- killed over 3,300 nationwide, mostly
The 25-year-old and his sister nosed with coronavirus, she was not in Hubei Province and its capital,
had to transfer their files to another given timely treatment for chronic Wuhan, as of March 30. In the epi-
hospital which is designated to treat kidney failure. Many other patients centre of the pandemic, collateral
febrile patients. “We are under quar- with chronic illnesses, however, damage was also devastating. Apart
antine here, but so far no hemodi- could not even leave their neighbor- from a dearth of essential medical
alysis is arranged either,” he says on hood for hospitals to receive treat- treatment, strict lockdowns of cit-
February 2. “I called the health bu- ment vital for their survival. ies as well as traffic bans cut many
reaus but to no avail.” The devastating coronavirus people off from supplies of drugs,