REPRESENTATIVES of the Shenzhen traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) medical team which was dispatched to aid Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak shared their experience of working on the frontline with the media Friday, Daily Sunshine reported.

“Despite all kinds of preparations, we were surprised when we arrived at Leishenshan Hospital. The hospital was still under construction while receiving and treating patients. There were construction workers everywhere,” Liu Yuxiang, leader of Shenzhen TCM medical team, recalled.

According to Liu, the patients they received were generally elderly with poor nutrition. Three of them had high fever and two needed noninvasive ventilators.

“We established a reasonable and efficient work procedure and carried out comprehensive assessment and intervention on high-risk patients as soon as possible to prevent their condition from worsening,” Liu said.

What impressed Liu most was a 77-year-old man in the ward, who had been seriously ill for seven days when he was admitted to the hospital. The patient neither ate nor drank and was ready to give up. But under the intense care of the medical staff, the condition of the patient gradually improved.

“In order to express his gratitude, the patient, who was not very good at using his mobile phone, spent nearly two hours typing out a thank-you letter of more than 200 words without punctuation to express his gratitude to the medics.

“At that time, I was so moved that I almost cried,” Liu said. “After 21 days in the ward, the old man recovered and was discharged from the hospital. We have kept in touch so far.”

“All the hard work was worth it when I watched the patients getting better and better,” Peng Siping, a member of the TCM medical team, said.

Through joint efforts, the Shenzhen TCM medical team received and treated a total of 46 patients, 13 of whom had severe conditions. The oldest patient was 87 years old, and the average age of the patients were 63.

The Shenzhen TCM medical team, which consisted of 25 members, set out to Wuhan on Feb. 17 and entered the C6 ward of Leishenshan Hospital the next day.

All the critical cases in the C6 ward had recovered by March 23 and all the patients had been discharged from the hospital by March 28.

On March 31, the Shenzhen TCM medical team returned to Shenzhen. (Zhang Yu)