At the Han Yang Hospital, these doctors and nurses (pictured above) looked after severely ill COVID-19 patients during the worst of the pandemic last year. However, they were not just doctors, they were also someone’s husband, someone’s daughter, someone’s wife and someone’s parents.
The constant stress of managing the COVID outbreak in China means they shouldered a double responsibility. In the face of the daily risks, they were regarded in China as the people’s protectors.
The medical team at Han Yang Hospital. Photo: Zhi Xuan.
Dr Lei Huang dreamed of being a doctor from the day a doctor saved his life in primary school. He is now 24 and has been working at Han Yang Hospital since graduating from university two years ago.
During the COVID outbreak, he volunteered to be one of the team members conducting nucleic acid tests for the public. As an only child, his family were worried about the risks he faced, but Dr Huang said his work gave him great happiness.
“It is the passion that drives me to be a doctor and I just want to be brave when it comes to this emergency, so I would like to be a member of the medical team that provides help to the public,” he said.
Dr Lei Huang (right) works with his partner Dr. YanLing Huang (left). Photo: Zhi Xuan.
Dr Huang works with his wife, Dr YanLing Huang (below), a geriatric specialist at Han Yang, where she has worked for over a decade.
Photo: Zhi Xuan.
The challenges of managing their family during the pandemic – including YanLing’s mother and their two children – were as much a day-to-day part of the couple’s life as their work at the hospital.
Dr YanLing Huang and other doctors sorting medical materials. Photo: Zhi Xuan.
“I had no choice but to ask for help from my mother (pictured below) to take care of our two kids because I work until midnight every day. My husband was also very busy, so nobody will take care of my children if she did not offer to help,” Dr YanLing Huang said.
Photo: Zhi Xuan.
YanLing acknowledges the constant compromise between work and family life is something many doctors felt during the COVID outbreak.
Her work schedule not only meant she could not take care of her young daughter, who was still breastfeeding at the time, but that she was plagued by feeling she was letting her colleagues down when she had to leave work.
“I am afraid that if I ask for leave frequently, other doctors will be overworked during COVID. So, I had to adapt to the situation quickly,” she said
Dr YanLing Huang outside Han Yang Hospital. Photo: Zhi Xuan.
What gives her greatest reward is the people she works with: “I am passionate about my job, when I received compliments from my patients or my patients’ families, I felt a sense of satisfaction,” she said with a big smile on her face.
Photo: Zhi Xuan.
Another young couple on the frontlines of COVID are Dr BingYan Zhou and nurse ShuYing Wang. Now 26, they met at college and married soon after graduation, before coming to work at Han Yang Hospital.
They said they were scared of being infected while treating COVID patients, but they wanted to support their patients.
Shu Ying Wang said the work-life balance was easier, in one sense, because they had no children. However, the long work hours during the worst of the pandemic, with late nights and early mornings, caused both to worry about the effect a lack of sleep and such confronting work will have on their health.
Dr BingYan Zhou and nurse ShuYing Wang with a community worker. Photo: Zhi Xuan.
Dr Lei Guo is 35 years old and has his own family to look after. Like Drs Lei and YanLing Huang, and their colleague Jia Tan, he has a young baby at home.
Lei Guo dons his COVID protective equipment. Photo: Zhi Xuan.
Dr Lei Guo drives the support the team after finishing his daily work. Photo: Zhi Xuan.
