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 Wang Lan left her work as a jewelry company owner and volunteered to work as a cleaner in a Beijing hospital during the SARS epidemic. Provided to China Daily |
A jewelry company owner recalls volunteering at hospitals during SARS, when some frightened medical workers quit. Liu Xiangrui reports.
Editor's Note: This is the final package of China Daily's two-month series, chronicling Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome's outbreak and exposing the faces behind the news. The epidemic claimed hundreds of lives, including medical workers who sacrificed to save people despite the risk of infection. But the end of SARS' outbreak wasn't the conclusion of the disease's legacy. Rather, it was the beginning of a drama that's still unfolding, as China Daily reveals.
When some healthcare workers and cleaners fled hospitals during SARS, jewelry company owner Wang Lan surprised many by volunteering to fight on the disease's frontline.
She worked for a month as a cleaner in April 2003 and later sterilized contaminated spaces at You'an Hospital, which was designated to treat the epidemic.
Wang signed up after reading reports that hospitals were short-staffed.
"I wondered what I could do," says Wang, now 50.
"It's not a specific group but all of society who are obliged to act during such dire times."
Her husband, doctor Ma Jian, says Wang has always been swift to set and accomplish goals.
"She starts immediately and does whatever it takes to complete a task," he says.
Ma supported Wang's decision. As a doctor, he believed she could prevent infection with the right measures.
He later realized he underestimated the risks, he says.
Wang called several hospitals and got a call back from You'an, which asked her to help with the daily needs of 30 medical workers from another hospital.
"I said 'yes' immediately," Wang says.
She had to live at the hospital and received a 50 yuan ($8) daily stipend. The head nurse believed Wang had been laid off and was desperate for a job.
"When I told her I wasn't working for money, she was surprised and said: 'Really? Well, then, you can start tomorrow'," Wang recalls, smiling.
She did. Wang left her business to her sister. She spent the following month providing food and medicine for the medical workers, while also cleaning their dormitories and toilets.
Wang let her own hygiene slip. She was usually primly groomed and wore French perfume. But she became disheveled and stinky, she says.
Many cleaners who stayed were disgruntled at picking up the slack of those who'd quit.
Wang recalls an elderly sanitation worker threatened to quit if ordered to clean a room packed with garbage. He complained that he only earned 500 yuan a month.
Wang told him she'd do it and pleaded with him. "This is an unusual time, and we're shorthanded," she told him.
"If you think you're underpaid, I'll pay you."
He stared at her, dumbfounded.
"You'll pay me? How much do you earn?" he asked.
He was shocked and moved when he learned she ran a jewelry company. The man grabbed a cart, and they both started cleaning.
Medical workers were discriminated against during SARS.
At supermarkets, other shoppers avoided them and employees often kicked them out when they saw the IDs they had to wear for work.
So Wang asked her employees to buy daily items for the hospital's staff. She spent more than 10,000 yuan.
A nurse who stayed in the room next to Wang's was infected.
"My heart dropped and I touched my forehead without realizing it," she says.
"I only calmed down after making sure I didn't have a fever."
She was grateful her husband visited her every day.
The medical team moved to a hotel several days later. The hospital told Wang she had done her part and could go home. Instead, she stayed.
Her new job was to sterilize at-risk zones.
She used peroxyacetic acid, which irritates the eyes and takes a long time to dilute properly.
"Wang always patiently followed procedures, even when nobody was watching," Yu Liancong, head of the disinfection department, says.
While disinfecting the wards, every step was difficult in the heavy protective suit. She heard her own gasps inside the 60-layer respirator. Disinfecting the ward took four hours each time.
The acid made her throat so sore that she lost her voice and was diagnosed with a corneal burn. She used eye drops for a long time.
Despite the hardships, the experience greatly influenced Wang, she says. "I cared more about society and ordinary people than ever during that period," Wang says.
"Before, I just worried about my business. But I was so impressed by ordinary medical workers' devotion."
Wang says she also came to understand her husband's job. She stopped complaining that he was too busy and neglected her, she says.
But while Wang's experience was incredible, she believes her actions were ordinary.
"Nobody is simply a spectator when we face disasters," she says.
Contact the writer at liuxiangrui@chinadaily.com.cn.
