A small hospital with a tall order

By Ching-Ching Ni

May 17, 2008 7 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

JIANGYOU, CHINA — Dr. Huang Dong has slept maybe three hours in the last three days.

There is no time to rest when hundreds of earthquake victims are still making their way to the small city hospital where Huang works. The building that was 903 Hospital remains upright, but unsafe. Patients must receive treatment outdoors, where a tent city of tarps draped over hospital beds serves as an open-air triage center.

“I have never seen this much trauma, this many people screaming in pain,” said Huang, 30. “I can’t begin to describe how that feels.”

The magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Sichuan province Monday killed more than 22,000 people, government officials said, with the official count expected to reach 50,000. Thousands suffered gruesome injuries, straining the capabilities of humble facilities in Sichuan like this one, which was never equipped to cope with so many trauma patients at the same time.

Sirens blared and soldiers wheeled in people who were immediately assessed and treated under a couple of garden umbrellas shading them against the relentless sun. A woman with one shoe was having her hair cut away so a large head gash could be stitched. A frightened little boy being examined next to her just stared.

A farmer with muddied boots twitched as a doctor checked his broken leg. A teenager with a missing thumb screamed as nurses tried to put a cast on his hand.

Sitting motionless was Zhang Jinyi, cradling her 4 1/2 -year-old son, Yang Baozhi. The boy’s eyes were swollen red and purple, and his head was wrapped in fresh bandages.

“We walked a whole day to get here from the mountains,” said his mother, who was holding someone else’s baby outside her home when the earth shook and her house collapsed. Her own son was inside. “Luckily he wasn’t buried too deep and I was able to dig him out myself,” she said.

More than 100 families crowded the huge outdoor ward. Relatives kept patients cool with bamboo fans. Nurses rubbed alcohol on open wounds. Doctors read X-rays clipped to the beds. Old people with their eyes shut moaned.

Seven-year-old Chen Haiqi had 16 stitches in her head and scratches all over her body. She was thrown from the third floor of her school and slammed against a tree before falling. Relatives carried her out of the village, and the first medic they met stitched her up without using anesthesia.

“We live in the mountains. There was no medication available,” said her father, Chen Zhiqing, 33. “She tried not to cry in the beginning. I know my daughter. She is very brave.”

Nearby, a family huddled beside 20-month-old Yan Baojia. She was in her mother’s arms when the earthquake hit. Flying debris knocked them both unconscious.

“She didn’t wake up for two days,” said the mother, Yang Xiaoli, as tears filled her eyes. Her child lay sleeping with tubes feeding into her tiny body and a bandage above her forehead.

“After we got here she still wouldn’t eat or drink, throwing up anything we fed her,” Yang said.

For the medical staff, one of the biggest worries was keeping patients free of post-operational infections.

“Antiseptics, antibiotics, bandages, they are all in short supply,” Dr. Huang said.

What was not in short supply was the willingness of those who were healthy to lend a hand.

A 13-year-old and a friend volunteered to distribute cucumbers and soup to patients’ bedsides.

A soldier transporting the injured to and from operating tables had not eaten or slept for days and finally passed out in front of the people he had helped.

Outside the hospital courtyard, ambulances headed out to excavate more victims.

Wang Wei, 39, a medic from eastern China’s Zhejiang province, was one of the many out-of-town emergency rescue team members who arrived in Sichuan to help.

“Our mission,” he said, standing next to a caravan of about 50 ambulances, “is to get to the victims, as soon as we can.”

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