Source: Qinhuangdao News Network
Shi Song and Song Yugang send specimens for inspection. Photo provided by Gangkou Hospital
Reporter: Zhou Lei
Two medical workers wearing protective clothing and masks, sitting in an ambulance, posed a group photo in front of the camera. This is a work photo, and also a photo of husband and wife, Song Yugang and 38-year-old Shi Song, an official from the Respiratory Department of Gangkou Hospital.
The photo was taken by their colleague on January 30 when the couple sending specimens for inspection to the Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Shi Song was a little shy and did not want the photo, but the colleague pressed the shutter button and recorded the moment.
Although they have been working in the same hospital for many years, Shi Song and Song Yugang are in different departments. She works at the respiratory department, and her husband drives ambulance to transport patients. They are busy with their own works and have few opportunities to work together.
This photo of them wearing masks without revealing their faces is one of their few working photos, which is carefully kept in the phone album by Shi Song.
Shi Song was a little excited when she knew that her husband was on duty and drove her to deliver the specimen. The reporter asked her, “What do you think of being husband and wife, while being comrade in arms?” “I can hardly tell, but I feel safe when I realized that we are doing the same thing.” Shi Song smiled.
The husband and wife fight on the front line of the epidemic prevention and control.
At 3:30 pm on February 2, Shi Song and Song Yugang took the time to be interviewed with the reporters. Since January 26, the couple has been keeping on the front line of fighting the epidemic.
It is in the crucial period to fight the novel coronavirus pneumonia, as a designated medical reserve hospital for the pneumonia caused by novel coronavirus determined by the Municipal Health Commission, Gangkou Hospital dispatched outstanding medical staff and set up fever wards, to do their best to prevent and control the virus.
Both Shi Song and her husband were listed as members of the fever ward working team. As an important functional department that monitors the infection data, supervises occupational protection, and controls the infection of various departments in the hospital, there are only 2 staff members in the Respiratory Department where Shi Song works, which means a hard work for them.
She has been working in the fever clinics and fever wards these days, training protective knowledge and guiding the disinfection of the medical staff, supervising the management of medical waste, and monitoring data, sometimes she is too busy to have a meal.
After the outbreak of the epidemic, there were more patients coming to the hospital than usual. “Many patients have very mild symptoms like headache or fever, but they feel somewhat panic,” said Shi Song, adding that it is very important for medical staff to protect themselves while receiving patients.
There are many young doctors and nurses in fever clinics and wards. Many of them are younger than Shi Song. So Shi Song calls them “kids”. She is tender like an elder sister at usual times, but she will criticize those who didn’t implement protection measures.
“Yesterday, I saw two kids worn masks backwards, and protection was not allowed to be careless and casual,” Shi Song said, adding that medical staff should take good protective measures, which is responsible for themselves, and for patients too.
People who enter the fever ward need to be fully armed from head to toe and tightly wrapped with thick protective clothing and two layers of masks. Shi Song is not always in the fever ward, but once she needs to go, she has to wear the protective clothing which makes her uncomfortable, not to mention the medical staff stationed in the ward for a long time, which tugged at her heartstrings.
As a ambulance driver who specializes in transporting fever patients, Song Yugang waits for orders 24 hours. He and his colleagues also bear greater risks than usual. “I don’t know what the patient is like and what the final result of diagnosis is,” Song Yugang said, adding that they were indeed worried, but when the siren of the ambulance sounded on the road, he gets relaxed. “We are saving people! What a glorious thing to save the patient with our ambulance!”
One for all
Shi Song said that after the establishment of the fever wards, the hospital leaders coordinated a hotel nearby as a place for fever clinics and medical staff to rest. Both she and Song Yugang lived in. They did not have time to take care of their children, and sent him to her parents.
They are offered one room for each in the rest place set up by the hospital, and the “temporary dormitories” of the couple are on the fourth floor and the sixth floor, respectively. They seldom meet even during the break, so they make phone calls or send messages on WeChat.
“It’s impossible even to have breakfast together.” Shi Song said that yesterday morning, she wanted to wait for her husband to have a breakfast, and then called to know that he had already finished his breakfast and been at the hospital.
Shi Song missed her son while lying in the empty hotel at night. The little boy is in fifth grade. “He rarely left me since he was at his early age.” she has chat with her son through WeChat video when she missed him, “We chatted for an hour last night, and the kid has grown up. He told me and his dad to take care of ourselves.”
Speaking of his son, Song Yugang felt thankful. Before the winter vacation, he promised to take his son to climb the mountain. “Fortunately, we kept our promise on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month, because we went to work on the 2nd day of the 1st lunar month, and can’t stay with him.”
The couple concealed the fact to Song Yugang’s mother who is in her seventies that they are on the front line of epidemic prevention and control. “She is too old to stand it anymore.” On February 1, the public account of the hospital promoted the deeds of the couple, and his relatives called Song after seeing that, “Take care of yourselves, Da gang.” Song Yugang couldn’t help weeping tears. He said that tears are not coming from grievance or fear, but from the realization of his own value, and he was proud of himself.
On February 2, a friend of Shi Song came to the hospital under heavy snow and gave her 200 disposable shoe covers after knowing the news, and said, “Keep them and take care of yourself, let’s meet again when this thing is over.” Shi Song was moved by the friendship.
“As a party member, it is a particularly glorious thing to fight side by side with other people on the front line at the most critical moment,” Shi Song said, adding that she and Song Yugang are confident that we will win the battle against the epidemic.
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