Coming to the rescue

Luo Huanan (right) and another group member prepare a dressing change for a COVID-19 patient in a Wuhan hospital. Luo is from the 130-member medical team from Shaanxi province to assist Hubei to fight against the epidemic. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Physician Luo Huanan believes deeds mean more than words and has put this belief into action by volunteering to work on the front lines to fight the COVID-19 outbreak.

Luo is deputy chief physician of the otolaryngology head-and-neck surgery department of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University in Shaanxi province.

He was supposed to enjoy his annual leave after returning on Dec 31 from a year and a half of medical service in the Tibet autonomous region. But he sacrificed his holiday to join the hospital's outpatient department to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak.

On Feb 8, his hospital established a 130-member medical team to assist the most-affected province, Hubei, to fight against the epidemic.

He serves as a group leader and directs his colleagues to take charge of daily diagnoses and treatments at the new Sino-French ward of Tongji Medical College's Tongji Hospital, which is affiliated with Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan.

Accepting risks

Even with tertiary protection, his team is susceptible to contagious exposure, since their key responsibilities involve collecting throat swabs and various procedures to treat high-risk patients.

"We all know that if the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan isn't resolved properly, no one in the country can be at peace," Luo says.

"We medical workers must hit it head on at the front line. All of our team's 130 members believe this. A sense of integrity and of duty compels me to save critically ill patients."

On Feb 17, the team succeeded in implementing the first tracheal intubation and invasive ventilator treatment for an 85-year-old woman with a severe case of novel coronavirus pneumonia.

She was admitted to the hospitable with a fever for the first 10 days. A CT scan revealed a pulmonary infection.

On Feb 16, she became restless and delirious, and couldn't be treated with a high-flow nasal cannula or noninvasive ventilator to assist oxygen inhalation.

Her lung tissue was severely hypoxic with serious lactic acid accumulation, even when she was given pressurized pure oxygen.

The group held an emergency meeting to discuss the treatment plan and decided to apply the tracheal intubation ventilator. The patient's condition has since remained stable.

Luo's ENT (ear, nose and throat) expertise enables him to assist and guide team members to collect nucleic acid from mouth swabs. This improves the tests' accuracy.

In addition to his medical work, Luo wrote the lyrics for the music video, Loving You without Regret, released by the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University on Feb 14, which pays tribute to medical "retrograders".