Hospital shares its experiences with Dutch counterparts

A hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, shared its experiences on the diagnosis and treatment of novel coronavirus pneumonia patients with hospitals in the Netherlands online on Monday.

Via a video conference held in Wuhan Union Hospital, which lasted for about one hour, doctors from the hospital answered questions from representatives from 14 hospitals in the Netherlands, including Bravis Hospital and Elisabeth Tweesteden Hospital.

The questions covered a wide range of topics, including how to identify novel coronavirus pneumonia patients with atypical symptoms, the contagiousness of patients, the isolation of patients, useful drugs for the disease, methods to rescue critically ill patients and protection for medical staff.

Since late January, Wuhan Union Hospital - one of the top hospitals in the city, epicenter of the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak in China - has received 1,600 patients, many of them in serious condition, and half of them have been cured and released, said Wang Hongbo, deputy Party chief of the hospital.

"We have accumulated a lot of experiences in epidemic control and treatment of novel coronavirus pneumonia patients, especially serious patients, and we immediately agreed to help when approached by these hospitals," said Wang, who is also a professor in gynecology and obstetrics.

"We are ready to share all we know with doctors from other countries to fight the disease."

From the discussion, Wang learned that doctors in the Dutch hospitals lack adequate knowledge of the disease and they face great difficulties in rescuing patients, such as a lack of medical staff and equipment as well as self-protection materials such as masks and protective gowns.

"We will provide them with unconditional technical support in treatment of patients," he said.

"But for the present, it may be not possible for us and other hospitals in Wuhan to send medical teams to the Netherlands, as there are still thousands of patients in Wuhan to be rescued, although the epidemic is under control."

On Sunday, only four new cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia were reported in Wuhan, while 752 patients were cured and released from hospitals in the city, according to the National Health Commission.

More than 2,800 serious cases are still under treatment in Wuhan, it said.

While the epidemic has been controlled in China, including Wuhan, it is rising quickly in many European countries, including the Netherlands.

Wang said a key reason for the great progress in epidemic control in Wuhan is the massive support from across China, including from the more than 40,000 medical staff who were sent to the city to help combat the disease.