Chapter 251: Do what you are capable of
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Zhang Fan was truly rendered speechless when he performed the daily morning patient checkup. Although the hospital was no jail, most normal people would clean things up to wait for the doctor’s daily morning checkup. However, these four patients were truly different.
Not only was the young man still fast asleep at the time of the scheduled morning checkup, another young woman, who wasn’t one of the three female patients, was sleeping in his bed with him!
“What’s with this?” Zhang Fan asked a nurse with dissatisfaction. Chasu City Hospital wasn’t a mega hospital. There wouldn’t be enough staff to have a nurse constantly accompanying every patient. Still, this was the infectious diseases department, so it normally wasn’t recommended to have visitors staying over the night.
The young nurse hurriedly answered, “Yesterday, this lady came over to visit. She said that she would leave in just a little bit, but...!”
Zhang Fan truly didn’t know what to say. The infectious diseases department was clearly labeled on the entrance with very large lettering. Yet, it was as if these young people were illiterate.
“Wake them up!” Zhang Fan told the nurse as he went to go check up on the other patients first. To these young people who liked to be active at night, they would always be most tired early in the morning. Their biological clocks would already be in chaos. Their messy hair dyed in several different colors made them seem like demons!
Pitiful! What was pitiful? As the saying went, heaven’s actions could be deemed pitiful, but one’s own foolish actions would lead to death. It was natural law for people to get old, become ill, and die. Medical technology hadn’t advanced to the point where people would stop dying of old age. Thus, illnesses would always come visit every single person in their lifetime.
Getting ill was unavoidable. To describe this using idealism, this was a trial that the heavens sent to humans. If you didn’t care enough to manage or improve your condition, then you would be foolish. Was it that China wasn’t doing enough to spread common knowledge regarding infectious diseases? Did these young people know nothing but AIDS? Did they think that hepatitis B wouldn’t be fatal?
Morning checkups in the infectious diseases department involved drawing blood on an empty stomach as well as taking urine and feces samples for various checkups. Zhang Fan just finished the checkups when the young nurse came to tell him, “Doctor Zhang, those four patients of yours have run out of money on their accounts. When I went to talk to them about their medical fees, it seemed like they were having some difficulties.”
This was something rather ridiculous about Chinese society. Whenever a patient owed medical fees, the nurse’s telling them to pay up would sometimes result in the patient or their family members arguing with the nurse. Meanwhile, if a doctor went to ask for the medical fees instead, unless the patient was truly having financial difficulties, they would usually obey and pay up. That was just how ridiculous it was!
Seeing how awkward the young nurse felt, Zhang Fan knew that the youngsters were giving her trouble.
“How much money did you pay for hospitalization fees yesterday? How come it’s all gone before any treatment even started?”
“I know, Bro. I’m confused as well. I paid 2,000 yuan yesterday. How come it’s all gone before anything was even done!” The young man had just finished cleaning himself up. The young woman from last night had already vanished! Completely disappeared! She vanished as if she was a Bloody Mary!
“Where’s the young woman from earlier? Did the two of you have sex?” Zhang Fan asked directly.
“Hey! Bro, that’s so rude of you to ask. She’s my girlfriend!”
The more than Zhang Fan interacted with the young man, the more he felt the latter seemed demonic! Zhang Fan became really angry when he heard this!
“Say it! Where did she go! Do you realize that your disease is infectious? Hurry and call her to come over here! She needs to get a hepatitis B immunoglobulin injection!” This wasn’t about Zhang Fan minding things that weren’t his own business. This was his care for others as a doctor!
“Bro, don’t be angry. I bet that she was the one who gave me this disease in the first place! Let’s just talk about my treatment instead! I feel rather bad! I want to vomit!” Unfortunately, Zhang Fan couldn’t force this unreasonable patient to tell him the fourth girlfriend’s contact information!
“You paid 2,000 yuan for the four of you. That’s only 500 yuan per person, which isn’t even enough for the checkup fees. You should hurry and pay the medical fees. Also, don’t have anyone stay with you overnight anymore. You’re only harming yourself as well as others!”
“Oh! I’ll go get some money.” The young man didn’t object, but it also seemed like he didn’t really listen to Zhang Fan’s medical advice.
“Where’s your medical insurance card?” Zhang Fan inquired.
“What medical insurance card?”
“It’s something that lets you receive treatments for free at the hospital. Doesn’t your karaoke bar workplace buy insurance for you?”
“No, they pay our salary on a daily basis. They’ve never owed me any money!”
“Fine! Go! Hurry and pay your medical fees so that we can start your treatment as soon as possible. If it’s at all possible, you should ask your direct relatives to also come here!” Zhang Fan said in a depressed tone.
Were there many such people in China? Indeed, there still were. China had developed a national medical insurance program immensely, yet such people seemed as if they were living under rocks, not knowing about any of this! Maybe they were stuck in their own little worlds! After Zhang Fan got off from work today, while he wasn’t physically tired, he was really mentally drained! It wasn’t like he was a block of wood!
Zhang Fan took a hot shower, which helped him to somewhat calm down from that awkward feeling he had. While he didn’t have any special feelings towards these patients, their behavior still made him uncomfortable!
Ma Wentao had established a proper foundational start for his hospital. Although Ma Wentao had now sold his hospital to Zhang Fan, the prior’s influence could still be seen. Currently, Zhang Fan was somehow managing to maintain the hospital despite its expenses. They were still receiving the same number of surgery patients. However, there were no longer any internal medicine patients or people coming in for physical examinations. Perhaps this was all because Zhang Fan didn’t have the money to keep additional departments open like Ma Wentao.
Over the Spring Festival, things would always be busy in China. On the day before the Spring Festival, everyone was eating together with their families, but not Zhang Fan. He spent his Spring Festival at his hospital due to two surgeries that his hospital received.
One surgery patient was a middle-aged woman who had accidentally slipped with her hand while she was cutting meat. She cut off her own left hand’s index finger, middle finger, and ring finger!
The other surgery patient was a young child who had injured his fingers with firecrackers. His thumb and index finger were seriously injured.
Both patients were brought to Zhang Fan’s hospital as his hospital was already well known in Chasu City as a good hospital for hand and foot surgery. This was also because the public hospitals didn’t focus on this type of surgery, especially limb replantation surgery. Only Zhang Fan’s hospital specialized in limb replantation surgery.
The two patients arrived one soon after another, with the middle-aged woman arriving first. Zhang Fan’s doctors who had originally been at home celebrating the Spring Festival had to hurry over as well.
Li Liang was already capable of performing finger reattachment surgery for the simpler clean slice injuries. This was no problem for him, although the more difficult crush injuries were still beyond his ability to deal with.
Nuar was also now an employee of Zhang Fan’s hospital. After Nuar retired, he really experienced the bitterness of lacking money. He was now completely different from back when he’d been surgery Director Nuar of Kuake City Hospital. Now, he would never drink alcohol during work time. Since he was the only doctor at Zhang Fan’s hospital who had held a medical license for many years, and he was also Zhang Fan’s surgery director in name, Chen Qifa especially gave Nuar an office of his own.
Song Bing was a doctor that Zhang Fan had personally recruited from a smaller city hospital. Song Bing was an orthopedic surgeon who had just turned 30 years old. He had graduated from a trade school rather than a college, and had only obtained his medical license a few years ago, which was why he was working at a smaller city hospital. Still, his movements were quite good, and he had talent. Song Bing worked quite well together with Li Liang. By the time that Zhang Fan arrived at his hospital, the two of them had already started working on the finger reattachment surgery for the middle-aged woman. Zhang Fan didn’t get involved in the surgery, and simply stood behind them to observe.
‘Very good!’ Zhang Fan mentally praised them. It seemed that Li Liang had practiced significantly by himself. His movements were quite good by now. Song Bing’s movements were also very good. In comparison, Chen Qifa wasn’t capable of performing such microsurgery, since he was getting older.
“Teacher, you should go back home and enjoy the Spring Festival. This is a clean slice injury. It won’t be difficult for them, so you can rest assured,” Chen Qifa secretly whispered to Zhang Fan while standing behind him.
“You should be the one to go home instead. I’ll watch things here. It’s the Spring Festival, so you should accompany your wife and son.”
“It’s fine. My bratty son did well on his tests this year. He long since got his red packets from me. He’s probably playing video games right now. He’d be happier if I didn’t return home. My wife has also gotten accustomed to this!”
Just as the two of them were both trying to convince the other to leave, the phone in the operating room rang. Chen Qifa picked it up. “Hello? What is it? Okay, I’ll be there immediately!”
Zhang Fan turned to look at him. It was obvious from the half that he could hear that another patient had arrived!
“Teacher, neither of us will be able to leave. It’s a six-year-old child patient. His fingers were injured by a firecracker. He just arrived.”
“Let’s go!” As Zhang Fan left, he told Li Liang and Song Bing, “Doctor Li, Doctor Song, you must pay attention to repairing the blood vessels. Sew as many as you possibly can.”
“Okay, Director Zhang!”
Zhang Fan had given up on all services other than surgery for his hospital. However, hand and foot surgery here was slowly becoming more and more professional. Zhang Fan’s hospital was entering a proper path. It didn’t have to rely on connections to pull government employees here for physical examinations. Hospitals would have to rely on reputation more than connections in the end!
In China, regulations against firecrackers had become ever more severe. Firecrackers had now become completely banned in China. Some might feel that this would detract from the festive atmosphere of holidays, but actually, Zhang Fan highly agreed with this law.
Firecrackers were far too dangerous. Ordinary people might not know, but in China’s hospitals’ emergency departments, the most common emergency patients during every year’s Spring Festival were always coming with stomach problems and firecracker injuries.
A light injury would be injured skin. A severe injury could see even fingers being blown off, permanent blindness, and so on. Getting into such an accident for the sake of a so-called festive atmosphere would never be worth it. The person would have to live with endless regret for the rest of their life.
There were also cases of naughty children tossing firecrackers into fermentation tanks or old sewers. In such enclosed areas with large amounts of flammable gasses, this would be no different from tossing a bomb. If the bomb was ignited, it would be quite lucky if the naughty child could even survive, much less enjoy the Spring Festival.
Another reason why China had banned firecrackers was for pollution. Although Zhang Fan didn’t know anything about pollution, he did know that firecrackers were far too dangerous.
At Zhang Fan’s hospital’s main hallway, he saw a man carrying a young child, while a woman was holding the child’s right hand with cotton from home. The young boy had likely been extremely frightened by the incident. There were many tear streaks on his face, and his expression was one of terror. He seemed really pitiful! His grandparents were also behind him.
Even though it was colder than -20 degrees Celsius outside right now, the child’s parents were dressed only in pajamas. They also had bare feet clad only in slippers. At such a time, they didn’t even feel the cold, as they were only thinking about their son’s hand!
“Doctor! Our son’s fingers were injured by an explosion!” When the child’s father saw Zhang Fan and Chen Qifa, he hurriedly rushed over while carrying his son. “Doctors, I’m begging you, please preserve our son’s fingers!” It seemed likely that he had already visited other hospitals!
In the year 2010 in the border province, to put it bluntly, if it wasn’t for Zhang Fan’s hand and foot surgery hospital, this young child as well as the middle-aged woman who was undergoing surgery right now would likely permanently lose their fingers. This was all because so few hospitals focused on this specialization. In that scenario, if a hospital had to take in such a patient but was unable to perform limb replantation surgery for them, there would only be one cruel result possible. The medical term for what would happen afterwards was simple and well-known: amputation!
This really would be quite cruel. Not only would the person’s future life be filled with inconveniences, they would also become handicapped!
If Zhang Fan hadn’t received his Medical System, he would have been nothing more than an ordinary resident doctor who could only perform the most basic surgeries at this time, but he now had incredible medical abilities. He wanted to do as much as he possibly could!
This wasn’t arrogance. As the Chinese saying went, do what you are capable of! This would help grind Zhang Fan’s microsurgery experience in his System, and also help so many people. Of course he would be happy to do it!
Fingers weren’t like plant leaves. A cut off finger wouldn’t regrow by itself!
“Hurry and carry him in. We’ll immediately check his condition!” Zhang Fan brought the boy’s father into the examination room.
There wasn’t any more evident bleeding. However, the cotton had gotten stuck together with the blood, thus sticking to the injury. Zhang Fan put on some gloves and swiftly used saline solution to soak the cotton so that he could slowly clean the injury.
After removing the cotton and seeing the injury, Zhang Fan and Chen Qifa both inhaled cold breaths!