Role models honored for generous public service

Medical workers who fought COVID-19 earlier this year and volunteers who served the second National Youth Games last August were honored as Shanxi's special role models at an awards event.

To mark their contributions to society, an awards ceremony for the "2019 top 10 inspirational role models in Shanxi" rated by local media was held in Taiyuan on July 10.

The award-winning medical workers included those who fought on the front line against the pandemic in Hubei and Shanxi provinces.

Since Jan 26, Shanxi had dispatched 13 medical teams consisting of 1,516 members from 189 medical institutions to Hubei, the center of the outbreak in China.

They worked in 16 hospitals in the cities of Wuhan, Xiantao, Tianmen and Qianjiang. There they treated 3,527 patients with a collective recovery rate of more than 95 percent.

The teams also carried out 18,000 nucleic acid tests, 3,377 CT scans and trained more than 6,200 local medical workers. During their two-month tour, no cases of infection were reported among the medics.

Su Hui, a doctor from the Changzhi People's Hospital, is one of the medics who served as part of the relief effort.

At the ceremony, she shared her story of serving two special patients－a mother confirmed with COVID-19 and her newborn－in a hospital in the Hubei city of Qianjiang.

"As all the members of the family were quarantined, I was assigned to take care of the mother and 10-day-old baby," said Su, who is an obstetrician.

With the limited number of medics in the special period, Su had to work as both a doctor and a nurse. Feeding the baby, changing diapers and conducting tests were all part of her job.

"The mother, who was separated from the baby, was always worried about the baby.

"So I took a lot videos of the baby and showed them to the mother," said Su, adding that she felt sympathetic to the mother as she is a mother too.

Another special award was granted to the 450,000 volunteers who served the second National Youth Games. The volunteers came from all walks of life and included university students.

Serving the swimming events were 119 students from Shanxi Agricultural University. Among them were six girls from the same dormitory.

"As we worked in various activities, it was a great fun to share our stories when we came back to the dormitory at night," said Zhao Xiaoqian.

She said volunteering is a worthwhile experience, as it requires teamwork and helped her make a lot of friends with athletes and volunteers.