More than half a month has passed since the outbreak of hepatitis C infection at Dongtai People's Hospital in Jiangsu Province.
May 31, diagnosed 69 infected people one after another to get the first test report after taking the drug. Synthesizing the responses from a number of patients, 20 to 30 people have had a significant drop in their viral load, and some patients have turned negative, but still need to continue to receive antiviral treatment.
A patient's family revealed that on the morning of June 2, about twenty to thirty patients arrived at the inpatient department where the hemodialysis unit is located on the B floor, and some of the patients' representatives went to the ninth floor of the administration building to meet with the hospital. It is reported that the hospital has not yet agreed to the request of the patients and their families.
Operation irregularities
Yang Yi (a pseudonym), a patient in the Dongtai People's Hospital hemodialysis recalled that patients on dialysis in the morning usually enter the hemodialysis room at 7:40 a.m., before which the nurse will be punctured with a disposable puncture needles to be disassembled, distributed, and placed on the top of each dialysis machine. Yang Yi said, the dialysis machine on the dust, "hand so a wipe, all black", and sometimes even the last patient to use the blood spatter.
A patient's family member said that once, she reflected to the nurse, the nurse impatiently back, "What does it matter?"
Yang Yi also revealed that although the hemodialysis room is divided into zones of dialysis for hepatitis B and C patients and ordinary patients, sometimes the machine in the isolation zone breaks down, and patients in the isolation zone are placed on dialysis machines in the neighboring ordinary zone, and by the time the machine in the isolation zone is repaired, the machine that has been used by the positive patients will continue to be used by ordinary patients.
The above phenomenon described by the patient is a clear violation of the Code for the Management of Hemodialysis Units in Medical Institutions, which was issued by the former Ministry of Health in 2010. Article 30 of the Code requires that after each dialysis, the surface of the dialysis machine and other equipment and facilities, and the surface of the goods should be wiped and disinfected. For patients with hepatitis B, hepatitis C and other patients, the "norms" clearly, should be in their respective isolation room or isolation area for special machine hemodialysis, treatment room or treatment area, hemodialysis machine can not be mixed with each other.
About three or four years ago, Dongtai People's Hospital hemodialysis room from the seventh floor of the Emergency Department moved to the third floor of the newly built inpatient hospitalization department B area. Yang Yi in the old and new blood dialysis room have stayed, he recalled, blood dialysis room moved to the new site, the patient also gradually increased. Around the end of last year, the hemodialysis room 24 new dialysis machines, but the environment not only did not improve, but more chaotic. Yang Yi said, delivery of takeaways, collect scrap he has seen, "the blood dialysis room is like a vegetable market".
This also violates the third paragraph of Article 27 of the above code, patients on dialysis should be strictly limited to non-staff access to the dialysis treatment area.
Is there a precedent for infection?
However, based on multiple patient accounts, the outbreak of infection appears to predate this.
A patient's family member recalled that on May 9, the hospital called to inform her that the routine medical checkup every six months had been moved up, and asked her father to go to the outpatient clinic as soon as possible to have his blood drawn and tested.
Ren Liqun later felt that something was wrong, "We were supposed to be checked in June."
On May 18, after the infection outbreak, patients received the imported drug Zebeta, which was distributed free of charge by the hospital, as well as hemodialysis patients who had been infected with hepatitis C before.
Zhao Xing was one of those eleven.
He said he had been on hemodialysis at the People's Hospital for nearly a decade when he found out about hepatitis C in December 2017 during a routine physical exam. He recalled that Zhu Yong, the director of the hemodialysis room, told him on the phone that he was infected with hepatitis C. He said that his transaminases were not high, and he was just a carrier of the virus and did not need to be treated, so at that time, he just ate some liver-protecting medicines, and hung a bottle of liver-protecting medicinal water.
Zhao Xing recalled that he asked the doctor how he was infected, and the doctor said, "You were infected outside.
He said that the gradual increase in the number of hepatitis C-positive patients is the last two or three years. As far as he knows, in the routine physical examination in June 2017, two other patients were also found to be infected.
Zhang Bo (a pseudonym) was tested in June 2017 for hepatitis C infection. He was also an old patient in the blood dialysis room. He estimated in hindsight that about seven or eight people were found to have hepatitis C before and after that year, and he had never heard of such a thing before. He claimed that he had also asked his doctor, who said "there is no cure". He also wondered, "Some say it's serious, some say it's not".
The burden of treatment
Chen Mingguo said representatives of the 69 infected people had approached Dongtai People's Hospital twice. He recalled that a vice president who received them reassured them, "Don't worry, we'll take care of it, and promise to look after you."
"Mental damage and all aspects of it, how do you guarantee? Social Opinion, the contradiction at home, how do you deal with it for me?" Chen Mingguo black face, some anger.
In fact, this is the majority of perennial dialysis patients have the face color. His left forearm has an upper and lower two pinholes about 20 centimeters apart, wrapped in a bandage. Chen Mingguo was originally a Hepatitis B patient, and just turned negative during his hospitalization in the Spring Festival, but now he is infected with Hepatitis C. He is now a Hepatitis C patient.
Chen Mingguo said, after the news, the original and peaceful neighbors, know that he was in the People's Hospital blood dialysis, and now see himself "like seeing the plague. What stings him more is that, once the accident, 9-year-old granddaughter was remarried to the neighboring town's mother to take away, no longer live with them.
There are also infected people who rent rooms near the hospital for dialysis and are asked by their landlords to move out.
Not to mention others, the hurdle in their own hearts is also very difficult to cross.
After learning that he was infected, Yang Yi never went home to have a meal with his parents. Sometimes parents call to ask him to come back, "I said not to go back, not let them wait, on this side (hospital) to eat."
The atmosphere in the blood dialysis room is also much more depressing than before. Yang Yi said, although many patients are suffering from kidney failure and even uremia, but after all, through such a long time, has slowly accepted such a situation, so before the blood dialysis room is still talking and laughing. But today, "people do not have this mood, even if I have this mood, people do not, how do you say?"
Almost all of the patients interviewed said they didn't care how much they were compensated, and because they were worried about recurring illnesses or re-infections down the road on dialysis, they hoped that the hospital would provide "life-long uncompensated treatment" for Hepatitis C.
This time around, the hospital is still in the process of developing the new treatment.
Many of the infected are from rural areas, and many, like Ren Liqun and Chen Mingguo, are already in debt. "I know that 95 percent of them are relapse-free, but we can't guarantee that I'm not within 5 percent, and then I won't be able to afford (the disease)." Ren Liqun said.
A patient's family revealed that on the morning of June 2, about 20 to 30 patients assembled in the inpatient department where the hemodialysis unit is located on the B floor, and after a standoff of nearly an hour, some patient representatives went to the ninth floor of the administration building to meet with the hospital. It is reported that the hospital has not yet agreed to the requirements of the patients and their families.
Stricter management
A private hospital called Beihai Orthopaedic Hospital, three kilometers away from the People's Hospital, the blood dialysis room is located in the outpatient clinic building in the bungalow area, strangers, once they enter the family rest area, two security guards will come forward to block.
Edited by Chen Wei Proofread by Liu Baoqing