Wuhan emerges from the shadow of COVID-19

A special award

In September 2020, Zhang, former head of Jinyintan and now deputy head of the Hubei Health Commission, received the national honorary title "People's Hero" for his outstanding contribution to the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic.

A photo of Zhang shaking hands with President Xi Jinping when he received the title is displayed at the entrance to the hospital's administration building. Wen said: "After passing the test of containing the COVID-19 epidemic, I believe we would act more calmly and be better prepared if a similar public health incident happened again. More importantly, medical resources at hospitals in Wuhan were boosted during the epidemic."

At Jinyintan, construction of two new buildings is almost complete. One of them will be dedicated to conducting research on infectious diseases, and the other will be an emergency response building that will provide routine healthcare, but can quickly be transformed into facilities to handle any sudden epidemics in the future, Wen said.

The hospital had only treated COVID-19 patients for the past three years, but in February, all general healthcare services fully resumed and the newly renovated outpatients' building was also put into use.

"The resumption of other healthcare services is quite significant for the hospital and the city because it shows that our lives are returning to normal," Wen said while inspecting the fever clinic and a number of patients.

A similar emergency response building is under construction at Wuhan Hankou Hospital. It will be equipped with standardized isolation wards that can deal with patients who have infectious diseases.

"You can see such buildings being built in many hospitals in Wuhan because in the past three years, the central government has attached great importance to boosting the infrastructure and improving the emergency response system to handle public health emergencies in the city," Zhao, from the hospital, said.

Wu Zhifeng, president of the Wuhan Sports Center, said the folding beds used at the makeshift hospitals are kept in storage nearby. "If there was a need to transform the stadium into a makeshift hospital in the future, I believe that we would be able to do it faster and more calmly."