This is the 14th oral account in the "Occasional Healing" series.
During the citywide lockdown, dialysis resources in Shanghai became exceptionally scarce. Combined with restrictions on movement, patients who rely on regular dialysis three times a week to stay alive were constantly in a state of crisis.
Many dialysis patients experienced interruptions in treatment. If dialysis is stopped for more than six days, it can become life-threatening.
Sun Ming, a 74-year-old Shanghai native, had once been a basketball player on his school team. After being sent down to the countryside, he later worked in a bicycle factory and eventually ran his own business. His wife, Weng Xueli, 71, was a retired cashier.
In recent years, both husband and wife were dialysis patients at Hongshan Hospital—the nearest hospital to their home, less than two kilometers away. Weng usually rode her bicycle there, taking about 15 minutes, while her husband would arrive faster using a senior mobility scooter.
Hongshan Hospital is a secondary general hospital under the jurisdiction of Huangpu District, located at 160 Hongshan Road in Pudong New Area.
On March 24, a COVID-19 case was confirmed among doctors in the dialysis ward, and the hospital was shut down. All dialysis patients were categorized as close contacts, and the urgent task was to find other hospitals willing to admit them.
Before the Pudong lockdown on March 28, the patients “ran in Pudong and ran in Puxi,” wandering across Shanghai in search of treatment.
Weng recalls that Hongshan had also briefly shut down on March 10. During that ten-day period, she and her husband received three dialysis sessions at other hospitals arranged by the neighborhood committee. On March 23, they had just returned to Hongshan for dialysis, only to hear the next day that it was closed again.
During the pandemic, the process for dialysis patients to transfer to new hospitals was as follows: residents submitted requests to the neighborhood committee, which passed them to the subdistrict office. From there, the list was forwarded to the Health Commission (for COVID-negative patients) or the CDC (for confirmed cases or close contacts). These agencies then contacted hospitals, which would reach out to residents directly with appointments.
Few hospitals were able to accept close-contact dialysis patients, and initially, even the neighborhood and subdistrict officials were unable to help.
At the most difficult point, Weng went eight days without dialysis.
By mid-April, designated hospitals for close-contact and COVID-positive dialysis patients were established based on need. Travel policies were adjusted accordingly, and the once “wandering” patients from Hongshan gradually resumed dialysis at a frequency of about twice per week.
On April 17, Hongshan Hospital reopened. Following pandemic prevention guidelines, the first group of 36 dialysis patients was allowed to return—Weng was among them.
However, her husband, Sun Ming, passed away at home on April 11. That afternoon, after going four days without dialysis, he collapsed in the bathroom and never woke up.
Sun left no final words. There was no farewell ceremony after his passing.