Parent Diary: A Pediatric Emergency Room Overnight at the Peak of Respiratory Infections

Photo by Li Huaxi

What I didn't expect was that the last time I stayed up all night was a few years ago on Chinese New Year's Eve, and this time I was with my children to see a doctor.

Two weeks ago, my child got sick and started having a runny nose and a low-grade fever at night.

I thought it was a common cold. From birth to now about to turn three years old, the child has a fever several times a year, and Motrin has become a standing medicine in our family.

But the child slowly began to cough, and the nasal discharge became more and more, from a clear nose to a thick nose, and his nose was wiped red by tissues. Later, there was more and more snot, and the snot scab slowly formed when it couldn't be wiped. The cough is also getting worse. When I sleep at night, because my nose is not ventilated and my throat has phlegm, the child can only sleep with his mouth open, accompanied by a loud snoring sound.

Although we bought cough syrup and cold granules, it didn't work much after eating it. My wife and I had no choice but to register our children with the hospital's pediatric emergency number.

Pediatric emergency department at a hospital in Beijing

We wanted to go to the hospital in the evening, but on the evening of November 14, in the pediatric emergency ward of a hospital in Beijing, we became scared. There were a lot of people there, nurses were answering the phone non-stop, many children were crying, and parents were standing in the hallway with hanging bottles, feeling tired.

When we got the registration form, the number written on it really scared us, 482. I asked the nurse at the triage desk and said that there were more than 100 people in the queue, and there was only one doctor on duty at night, and he would see six or seven children in an hour on average, and the fastest would be tomorrow morning. That night at the hospital, all we could do was a routine blood test, and the preliminary diagnosis was a respiratory infection.

The next day, I took a day off to stay home with my child. My wife ran to the hospital early in the morning to scan the code to report. Although our number is relatively late, I hope to go a little earlier and can call us first.

After my wife reported to work, there were still 8 children waiting in front of me, so I quickly got the children up and went straight to the hospital, but by this time, there were already more than a dozen children in front of us.

The nurse said that the children who had been lined up before all woke up and came to the hospital one after another, because our number was relatively low, so as long as there was a number smaller than ours, it would be lined up in front of us. The nurse told me not to wait in the hospital to avoid cross-infection of the child, and told me to remember the landline number at the triage desk, make a phone call half an hour after going home, and come back when the child is almost in line.

When I got home, when I made a phone call, there were more and more children in front of me, from a dozen to twenty. Calls went from half an hour to one hour. At noon, the child took a nap, and when I woke up, I called the nurse and said that I had read all the numbers for the day, and our numbers had been overnumbered, so we had to re-hang the numbers for the day.

Before hanging up the phone, I asked the last question, how many numbers are lined up today, and the nurse said, more than 300, and hung up the phone.

It was three days later. The child's condition did not improve, and we went to the pediatric emergency department again on the evening of November 17, and the registration list showed number 579.

On the 18th, I reported to the hospital early, and at that time I had already called more than 200 numbers, and the nurse also asked me to go home and wait, and called them in half an hour.

When I got home, I was able to get through the phone for the first few hours, but when I called later, it always showed that I was on the phone. According to the hospital's reception speed, number 579 should be seen in the afternoon or evening.

By the time I arrived at the hospital at 9 p.m., the hospital's calling machine was "broken". People lined up with registration slips, and security guards called for numbers. Several parents also quarreled with the security guards over the size of the registration list and the first-come, first-served queue order.

My number was relatively late, and I didn't join the quarrel. When I was in line, there were about 30 people in front. It was nearly 10 p.m., there was only one doctor on duty, and at the rate of seeing six or seven children an hour, I was waiting until 1 a.m. the next morning.

I asked my wife to bring a power bank, a water cup, and a maza, and was ready to stay up late in the hospital. When my wife came to me a few minutes later, I was at the end of the line, followed by a dozen more men.

When my wife came home to accompany the children, I and more than 40 "dads" stood or sat in the corridor of the children's emergency room, waiting to see a doctor.

Family members of patients queuing in the pediatric emergency department

Soon a few hours passed, when at half past eleven in the evening, the nurse came and shouted with a loudspeaker, it was November 19 after midnight, if it was the registration on the 17th, you need to go to the payment desk to refund the fee and re-register to pay, because on the 19th, the registration order on the 17th could not be prescribed.

A row of "dads" took over to re-register and pay, and when I got the registration order on the 18th, it said 648, which really broke another record.

At this time, it was almost early in the morning, and many parents were impatient, and at this time, the hospital opened another consultation room, and we could only call people from our team to that consultation room one by one.

After midnight, everyone became more and more sleepy and tired. Many parents complained, since there are few doctors, why do you have to release so many numbers? The doctor replied that because most of the people have emergency numbers, the hospital requires that the emergency number cannot be limited, which is a sign of respect for patients.

It was nearly 2 a.m. when we arrived. The doctor did the examination, prescribed the laboratory tests,

Half an hour later, the results were obtained, and it was confirmed that it was pneumonia. I didn't expect to get pneumonia from a respiratory infection, and I was glad that I was able to stay up all night and queue up to see a doctor, otherwise the condition would have been worse if I waited a few more days. The doctor prescribed an infusion sheet, oral medication, and nebulization therapy, and it was already 3 o'clock in the morning.

At this time, the child was born for the first time in nearly 3 years, it was inevitable to be nervous, crying and struggling in the infusion room, and there were several times when the struggle was excessive, there was some blood return, my wife and I held one leg, and the child's grandmother held the child, which did not let the child struggle the needle off.

When the atomization was completed, the child was quieter a lot, and after the atomization ended, it was already more than 5 o'clock in the morning, and all the numbers registered on the 17th in the hospital were read, and the first few numbers on the 18th also began to enter the consultation room, and the "broken" calling machine began to work again.

Because the doctor could only prescribe a one-day infusion, I hung up another number on the 19th, which said 83. I thought that the number of the day would definitely be more than 700.

It took a total of 31 hours from 8 p.m. on the 17th to 3 a.m. on the 19th.

We dragged our tired bodies back home, and it was almost 6 o'clock in the morning. I wanted to sleep but couldn't sleep, and I was going on a business trip in 2 hours, so I packed my luggage, took a hot shower, sat on the sofa and squinted for a while and began to prepare to go to the airport.

After that, during my absence in Beijing for a few days, the child underwent two more infusions, two more nebulizations, and after the last examination, the doctor prescribed medicine, and told him to go home and take the medicine.

On the way on a business trip, I saw from the news that respiratory infections have ushered in a peak of pediatric visits in many hospitals, and parents in the circle of friends have also begun to post photos of accompanying their children to see a doctor.

I saw that some hospitals in the report had reached 1,000, and Beijing Children's Hospital even lined up at 2,000 on weekends, and some parents lined up to find a doctor to pull out the infusion needle, and some parents brought their own hooks because they did not have an infusion hook. Some parents and children bring their own stools without seats, and even campervans come in handy.

After 5 days of business trip, I returned to Beijing, and the child took medicine for 2 days, and gradually improved, no longer had a runny nose and cough, and the medicine gradually stopped.

The child returned to his former state and began to bounce around the house, turning on the "chatter" mode. When our family sees that our children are healthy and happy, we are happy ourselves. This "battle" for pneumonia caused by respiratory infections has finally come to a successful end.

Source: China Youth Daily client