Exhausted Chinese doctors are sleeping on the floors of hospitals as they work all hours to contain the deadly coronavirus. Images showed medical staff laying down anywhere they could in an unnamed hospital in China. This included floors, benches and chairs.
The doctors have been hailed as ‘heroes’ online after they were snapped getting rest as they fight the killer infection.
In the pictures, eight hospital staff can be seen in protective suits sleeping side-by-side on the floors of the facility. Other snaps show workers snoozing in chairs and at their desks as nearly all of them are dressed in full protective gear. Some of the pictures were posted on social media with the caption ‘they are the true heroes of this country’.
China’s hospitals are reportedly overcrowded as the number of those infected by the coronavirus in the country has reached 17,297 in Mainland China, with 361 deaths in the country. The new Huoshenshan Hospital, which was built in the city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, in just eight days began taking patients on Monday.
The Huoshenshan Hospital, and a second hospital with 1,500 beds due to open this week, were built by construction crews who are working around the clock in Wuhan, where the new coronavirus outbreak started.
The Wuhan treatment centres mark the second time Chinese leaders have responded to a new disease by building specialised hospitals almost overnight. As severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, spread in 2003, a facility in Beijing for patients with that viral disease was constructed in a week.
The first patients arrived at the Huoshenshan Hospital at 10am today (2am GMT), according to state media. The reports gave no details of the patients’ identities or conditions. The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has overtaken that of the similar Sars epidemic in 2003.
Source: metro.co.uk
