Qiu Haibo, a nationally-renowned expert in critical care medicine and Vice President of Zhongda Hospital Affiliated to Southeast University, was entrusted to assist Wuhan City, Hubei Province on Jan. 20. He soon got engaged in the fight against the epidemic war as an important member of the medical treatment expert team of National Health Commission to rescue and provide guidance for treating critically ill patients suffering from COVID-19. Up to now, he’s been fighting in Wuhan for over a month.
Time is life. For critical medical experts at the national level such as Qiu Haibo who are racing against time and fighting against the disease, every second is related to the safety of more lives and the overall situation of epidemic prevention and control. At the “most critical” moment, Qiu Haibo, as one of the most outstanding representatives who can be truly renowned as the “Master of Medicine”, has been always fighting at the frontline to rescue life from the disaster.
“Doctor, doctor, should be the clinical doctor”
As the first Ph. D. specializing in critical care medicine in China, the Department of Critical Care Medicine of Zhongda Hospital led by Prof. Qiu Haibo has become the largest comprehensive ICU in East China on scale and even the center for the treatment of critically ill patients in Jiangsu Province and the whole country as well. The so-called critical care medicine is the last “life-saving arena” before the death. In Hubei, where the new coronavirus epidemic is raging, especially Wuhan, where the severely and critically ill patients are concentrated, became Qiu Haibo’s “main battlefield” once again.
“I’ll check the wards every day to observe the treatment response of severely and critically ill patients. This morning, I checked 60 patients in two hospitals and encountered one case of prolapse of tracheal intubation and changed the tube urgently”, said Qiu Haibo with a delicate touch. However, a person with some common sense of medicine knows the high risk of being infected by changing the respiratory intubation for COVID-19 patients. When he was asked why he came to the frontline since the long-distance diagnosis of case data can also be adoptable in research, he replied “doctor, doctor, should be the clinical doctor. He/she will never know the characteristics of the disease if not seeing the patient in person. The disease cannot be treated by just browsing in internet”. Taking a case of COVID-19 patient for example, normally, the lips of the patient turn purple in case of hypoxia, but the lips of COVID-19 patient will not be that purple with the actual oxygen saturation of only 30% to 80%, and his/her breath may stop at any moment, which is known as the asymptomatic phenomenon latest discovered clinically and renamed as “silent hypoxemia”.
As of 24:00, Feb. 18, 12 temporary sheltered hospitals reconstructed from exhibition centers and gymnasiums have been put into use to have received and treated 8,563 patients with milder symptoms. Such important measure is one of the suggestions proposed by the national expert team.When QiuHaibo just arrived in Wuhan, he was responsible for inspecting 3 hospitals that had been designated to receive and treat COVID-19 patients. When reporting to Vice Prime Minister Sun Chunlan, he suggested that experts of critical care medicine and respiratory medicine should work as the medical team leaders of ICU, which was then soon implemented with a large number of experts in charge of ICU rapidly. And many critically ill patients have been treated in a timely and effective manner.
“The current priority is to reduce the morality.” “Although it is called the new coronavirus, we have already found the treatment path.” “Special attentions should be paid to the elderly with underlying disease.” “Surgical masks are good enough for the majority except those who have to enter ICU red area”… Qiu Haibo shared his opinions directly regarding the key points of the epidemic that are also mostly concerned by the public, and he has attended the press conferences for several times within a month to answer hot questions, all requiring high profession and courage.
“There’s no necessary of feeling panic just based on the numbers of Wuhan because it is the place of epidemic outbreak with high epidemic process, but the epidemic became weaker for the second and third generations, which is an epidemiological rule. As a matter of fact, the proportion of critically ill patients is very low at other places. Even in Wuhan, such proportion is decreasing, and the rescue success rate is far higher than that of H1N1 influenza and avian influenza.” Qiu Haibo felt cautious and optimistic about the situation in Wuhan. In the course, he revealed two good news: firstly, the current beds can basically meet the needs of patients as a whole; secondly, statistics show that the proportion of newly infected patients with severe illness and critical illness is becoming less.
“I’ll not return without achieving the final success”, said Qiu Haibo who is practicing his initial intention as a doctor to save lives.
