Across China: Tibetan nurse's New Year wish

XINING -- Qoikyi Dorlma, 30, celebrated a special Tibetan New Year, which fell on Feb 24, in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China.

As a nurse from Haidong city, Northwest China's Qinghai province, she arrived in Wuhan on Feb 4 with the province's other medical staff aiding central China's Hubei province.

"This is the first time that I have taken a plane in my life," she wrote on WeChat, a popular social media platform. "I feel honored that my destination is Wuhan."

Dorlma needs to take care of more than 20 patients every day in one of the city's public facility-converted temporary hospitals. "The patients in the hospital are optimistic and their conditions are relatively stable," she said. "Some patients even sing songs to me."

Dorlma had no fear of the virus, but could hardly hold back tears when a patient spoke of her parents. "He said my parents must worry a lot about me working in the epicenter, and that made me almost cry."

Dorlma did not tell her parents that she had decided to aid Wuhan until she arrived in the city. "We pray for the health of our daughter and other medical staff and patients," said Dorlma's father. "We know the country and patients need her, and we will wait for her to come back safely."

The hard work of Dorlma and her colleagues has paid off. "I really want to thank all the medical staff in the hospital. They have cared for me for more than 10 days," said a cured patient on Twitter-like Weibo.

"Everytime I leave work at 2:00 am, the doorkeeper guarding the hospital gate always salutes me and my colleagues, saying that we have worked hard," she said. "At that moment, my exhaustion disappears and I feel revitalized."

"My wish for the Tibetan New Year is that all patients can recover as soon as possible and all medical staff can go home safely," said Dorlma.

As of Wednesday, the daily number of newly cured and discharged novel coronavirus patients on the Chinese mainland has surpassed that of new infections for nine consecutive days, the National Health Commission said Thursday.

So far, a total of 16 provincial-level regions in China, including Dorlma's hometown of Qinghai, have lowered their emergency response levels.