Around 24 million residents in Jilin have been under lockdown since March 14. The number of infected people in the province continues to increase, with 1,157 cases reported on March 16.
Currently, Jilin City (the former capital and second-largest city in the province) has put into use five mobile cabin hospitals with about 10,000 beds, and vacated seven medical institutions to prepare to take in new COVID patients. According to the Jilin Municipal Health Commission, there are three additional mobile cabin hospitals being quickly built or expanded, which will add another 7,000 beds.
As COVID rapidly spreads in Jilin, there is a shortage of medical supplies, personal protective equipment (PPE), and medical staff to carry out testing.
Recruitment posts have been popping up on Chinese social media for construction workers, who are needed to build more mobile cabin hospitals. Hospital staff have also posted on social media, asking for help with getting PPE.
On March 15, Su Ping (pseudonym), a medical volunteer from a community in Jiutai District, told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times that the COVID outbreak in the local area is serious. People are no longer allowed to go outside to take a nucleic acid test, due to the potential risks for cross-infection. Testing is done at home and volunteers go door-to-door to collect the samples.
Su mentioned that volunteers work very hard. They work late into the night and have no time to eat a full meal. Some got infected, resulting in a shortage of volunteers.
“No one is willing to do this kind of front-line work. Everyone is afraid,” Su said.
Su added that it takes a lot of PPE to do the door-to-door testing, and medical staff need almost three sets of protective clothing every day, due to wear and tear. At present, there is a shortage of protective clothing, N95 masks, gloves, shoe covers, and basic food supplies.
“We are all trying to find ways by ourselves to get supply donations from the private sector now. The government supplies are provided to medical staff, not to us volunteers,” Su said.
Since March 12, Jilin Provincial Hepato-Biliary Diseases Hospital has officially been designated for COVID patients.
Liu Yun (pseudonym), a nurse in the hospital, told the publication on March 15, “Except for some special circumstances, such as pregnancy and illness, healthy medical staff are all on the front-line.”
“Our (hospital) is already very full. The two buildings were fully occupied, with about 500 or 600 COVID patients.”
Liu said that due to the sudden spike in cases, protective gears ran out. And due to traffic control, supplies could not be brought in on time. At present, there is a huge shortage of supplies in the local area such as protective clothing and masks. Medical staff are not allowed to go home and must stay at nearby hotels after their work shift.
Liu said, “We need PPE when we leave the hotel for the hospital. The masks I wear now are surgical masks, as there are very few N95 masks. I only have three or four masks left. If the hospital cannot provide the supplies, there will be none. We can’t buy anything here, and Changchun city has been closed, and the express delivery has stopped.”
