Shanghai's major hospitals resume normal treatment order, these departments ushered in the peak of outpatient consultation

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Patients wait to be seen in the waiting area of the thoracic surgery clinic at Shanghai Renji Hospital, Feb. 1, 2023.

“Having passed the peak period of the new crown consultation, we have now resumed the normal order of treatment. The outpatient volume has returned to the level before the epidemic, the ward started to admit patients from the sixth day of the New Year and was basically full in less than three days, the surgery was also carried out early from the eighth day of the New Year, and 14 surgeries were opened in one day on the ninth day of the New Year.” At 10:30 p.m. on January 31, Zhao Xiaojing, a thoracic surgeon who had been busy all day, rushed home from the Hangzhou Bay Hospital of Renji Hospital in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, and was interviewed by a reporter.

Zhao Xiaojing is the director of thoracic surgery at Renji Hospital, affiliated with Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine. 2023 the first working day after the Chinese New Year has not yet arrived, he and his team have been busy, “support for the new crown treatment colleagues have returned one after another before the Chinese New Year, the previous peak infection period for the admission of new crown patients nearly 20 beds from January 31, the next official recovery, the next Can be admitted to a new group of thoracic surgery patients, the original 40 beds in our thoracic surgery ward, have also been basically full.”

Not only the wards, but also the outpatient clinics are back to business as usual. “Today (Feb. 1), many of the patients who came to the clinic are from overseas, and it is more convenient to seek medical treatment from other places because of the optimization and adjustment of the prevention and control policy.” Zhao Xiaojing said.

In the past two days, the reporter interviewed a number of tertiary medical institutions in Shanghai was informed that, at present, many hospitals in Shanghai have resumed normal order of treatment, the number of emergency room, the number of incoming ambulances back down significantly, the original support fever clinic, emergency room and participate in the treatment of patients with new crown multidisciplinary doctors, basically have returned to their original post work. Meanwhile, the thoracic surgery, cardiology and endocrinology clinics are currently experiencing a wave of peak outpatient visits.

“Basically, it’s exactly the same as before.”

Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine Affiliated Renji Hospital, the hospital’s outpatient volume has basically returned to normal levels, emergency room visits are also similar to the regular situation in previous years, with a daily average of about 700-800 people, basically no new admissions of patients with new coronary infections.

In Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, the number of ambulances has dropped back significantly, the offline outpatient clinic has fully resumed, the specialist attendance rate has reached more than 95%, and the outpatient volume has recovered to more than 90%.

Zhao Gang, director of the outpatient and emergency office of Shuguang Hospital affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, revealed that the outpatient and emergency volume of the hospital has basically returned to the level before the current round of the epidemic. At present, the average daily outpatient volume of Shuguang Hospital is about more than 9,000 people, and the emergency volume is significantly lower than when the new coronavirus infection was at its peak, and also at the normal level.

Zhao Gang said that patients attending the hospital now present three new features: first, after the new crown infection, there are especially many patients of the recovery type, the hospital’s respiratory department, Chinese medicine department of internal medicine, gastroenterology, cardiovascular department and other departments, often encounter the new crown recovery type patients; second, repeat patients ask for large prescriptions especially, many patients are also worried about the risk of infection in the hospital, asking for more drugs at a time. “In fact, after the peak of infection has passed, the hospital now has no risk of infection”; thirdly, after the habit cultivated by the epidemic, the number of patients who follow up through the Internet hospital has increased significantly, and there are significantly more online outpatient visits than usual.

In addition to the three features mentioned above, Zhao Gang said that patients coming from overseas to Shanghai have not yet fully recovered, and overall the hospital has returned to normal treatment order. The medical staff who previously supported the emergency and fever clinics have all returned to their respective departments, “basically exactly the same as before”.

Changhai Hospital outpatient hall

In Shanghai Changhai Hospital, the hospital’s emergency and fever outpatient visits have dropped significantly after the Spring Festival, with the number of fever visits now back down to about 50 a day and the number of visits to the entire emergency department down to a daily average of more than 900. the number of 120 emergency vehicles has also dropped significantly, to about 50 a day.

“This level is even a little less than the volume before the 2020 epidemic (when the average number of ER visits was about 1,200 a day), probably because after the current round of the epidemic, people are more calm about symptoms such as colds and fevers and easily do not come to the hospital.” Wang Meitang, director of the emergency department at Changhai Hospital, said that a regular emergency volume is now maintained overall.

However, the number of temporary stay patients in Changhai Hospital’s emergency department is still higher than usual. on Feb. 1, there were still about 50 stay patients in the emergency department. “Staying patients, may still have the original underlying disease, these patients infected with the new crown to a longer course of illness, slow recovery.” Wang Meitang said.

For its part, the pediatric hospital affiliated to Fudan University said the hospital’s general fever clinic is currently averaging about 100-120 people a day, of whom few are infected with the new crown, with daily ambulance arrivals falling to single digits. In terms of outpatient services, the specialist clinics have fully recovered. On January 29-30, the specialist clinics reached a daily average of more than 5,000 people, including renal diseases, respiratory diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, neurological diseases and hematological diseases, which have recovered to the pre-epidemic level, while the general internal medicine clinics are not crowded. The hospital revealed that it is currently in the winter holidays, many children take advantage of the holidays to come to the chronic disease follow-up, the consultation after the Lantern Festival will also usher in a small wave of peak.
“As much as possible to meet the medical needs of patients”

While the number of emergency cases and ambulances has fallen back, the wards used for the admission and treatment of severe new coronavirus patients in many tertiary hospitals in Shanghai are being withdrawn one by one, and the supporting doctors are returning to their original posts one after another.

“The support forces that were drawn from various departments to the emergency department during the peak period of neo-coronavirus infection and serious illness have now been gradually withdrawn.” Wang Meitang, director of the emergency department of Changhai Hospital, said that the support forces of the fever clinic and emergency department have been gradually withdrawn, and the whole hospital has gradually returned to the normal order of treatment. Elective surgeries, which were delayed during the epidemic, are now rising rapidly and gradually returning to normal levels.

After the restoration of normal treatment order, all cardiologists of Renji Hospital are on duty, working overtime to perform interventional procedures for patients.

After the normal order of treatment was restored, the Cardiology Department of Renji Hospital was in full swing and worked overtime to serve patients. Bu Jun, vice president of the hospital and director of the cardiology department, said frankly: “After a difficult period, now we have returned to the working condition before the epidemic, from the outpatient clinic to the ward, we have returned to the normal order of treatment, and on January 31 and February 1, we had more than 30 minimally invasive cardiac interventions carried out every day. Some chronic heart disease patients have been afraid to come to see the hospital because they were worried about coming to the hospital with a new crown, but now these patients are coming and the outpatient volume has increased 2.61 times compared to the period in December last year.”

Bu Jun’s department, which sees a lot of acute heart disease patients, did not stop seeing patients even in the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rabbit, “During the seven days of the Spring Festival holiday, our chest pain center rescued more than 10 cases of acute myocardial infarction, saving patients’ lives through emergency cardiac interventions, and due to the optimization of prevention and control policies, patients admitted for emergency surgery nowadays no longer need to go through ‘three zones and two channels’ and antigen or nucleic acid testing, the whole resuscitation process has been simplified and returned to the emergency process before the outbreak. Currently, we also have a queue of patients for elective surgery in our wards, and the entire ward is full of beds, even with extra beds.”

Chen Haibing, director of the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, is seeing outpatients at Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital on Feb. 1.

Chen Haibing, director of the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Shanghai No. 10 People’s Hospital, revealed that in December 2022, her ward was used for the treatment of patients with new coronary heart disease, and doctors in the department went in batches to support the fever outpatient clinic and the emergency clinic, “The last doctor in our department who went to support the new coronary heart disease ward returned on January 31, and now there are fewer and fewer patients with new coronary heart disease in the hospital. The original OB/GYN ward, which was temporarily opened for the admission of new coronary patients, has now been withdrawn and will start treating a new group of OB/GYN patients.”

Chen Haibing also said that all 33 medical staff in his department are now on duty to cope with the growing number of outpatient visits after the New Year. Since the eighth day of the year, the number of daily visits to the general outpatient clinic of the hospital’s endocrinology and metabolism department has reached about 400, plus a total of more than 500 daily visits to the specialist and specialized outpatient clinics, which has returned to the level before the epidemic.
“In the past two days, we have admitted 7-8 patients with acute hyperglycemia in one day at the outpatient clinic, and all of these people need to be hospitalized.” Chen Haibing further said that many of these patients had related symptoms during the epidemic and waited until the peak period of new crown visits had passed and the number of new crown patient visits had dropped before coming to the hospital, having been eschewed at home for some time, and many patients were at risk of developing diabetic ketosis and needed timely glucose-lowering treatment.

On Feb. 1, Che Wenliang, deputy director of the Department of Cardiology of Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital, was checking the ward, and the beds admitted to his ward were basically full at present.

Che Wenliang, deputy director of the Department of Cardiology at Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital, has been busy recently, “We officially started work on the seventh day of the New Year, but actually opened the outpatient clinic on the fourth day of the New Year, and the general ward and intensive care ward were admitted 80% at once. “Now inside the outpatient clinic, there have been few people to see the heart disease after the infection of the new crown, and few people to see myocarditis, more ordinary patients, mostly chest tightness, chest pain, shortness of breath, panic attacks, etc. on the group consultation, of which the number of patients with chest tightness to see a small uptick compared to the past.”

Che Wenliang further said that at the end of December last year and the beginning of January this year, the cardiology ward at most admitted more than 95% of new crown patients, many with symptoms of pneumonia, but now it is difficult to encounter new crown patients in the ward, after the new crown into the category B B tube, inpatients also no longer need to test for nucleic acid, the whole ward are back to the normal state before the epidemic.

“The current batch of newly admitted cardiology patients who need surgical treatment is still up compared to the same period last year, we are currently fully open for horsepower, since January 30, all need to ‘extend a delay’ at night for patients to do surgery, all 5 catheterization rooms are open for interventional procedures from Monday to Friday, everyone Recently, we have to leave work at 7-8 p.m. to meet the medical needs of patients as much as possible.” Che Wenliang said.