While Wuhan hospitals are full of corona virus patients, people with other illnesses are calling for help.

Wan Ruyi, a 21-year-old university student, was diagnosed with acute leukemia in May 2019. She was treated at Wuhan Harmony Hospital for the past 10 months. Her condition was getting worse, she needed a bone marrow transplant.

"Wan underwent three cycles of chemotherapy, but the last one in October 2019 was not very successful. A bone marrow tissue examination on February 9 showed that the treatment did not work as expected," the mother said. she, Wu Qiong, said.

Wuhan Peace Hospital is one of the first facilities designated to treat patients with coronary pneumonia (Covid-19) from January 21. The hospital told the Wan family that they could not have bone marrow transplant surgery because there was not enough doctors and the necessary blood. The family contacted a hospital in Hebei province, but they were asked to stay in Wuhan.

On February 9, Wan was in pain and discomfort, saying that she wanted to "die to finish". "As long as I was in Hubei, I was helpless and hopeless when my daughter continued to suffer," Wu said. "My child's condition is getting more and more unstable".

Wan is one of thousands of patients who need urgent medical treatment in Wuhan but is being forgotten because the city's medical resources are being concentrated to fight the Covid-19 epidemic. They include people with cancer or conditions such as bronchial asthma and epilepsy. Several desperate patients posted on Weibo to seek help from other parts of the country.

The Chinese government has imposed unprecedented measures to prevent the epidemic, including the blockade of Wuhan and at least 15 other cities in Hubei Province for weeks, affecting more than 50 million people.

In Wuhan, two field hospitals have been built in less than two weeks, and stadiums and exhibition centers have also been transformed into isolation and treatment facilities for people with mild coronavirus infection. However, the number of infections rising to thousands of people every day and more than 1,115 people were killed. In Hubei alone, there were 1,068 deaths, more than 33,000 infections.

For Fu Daoshun, 81, the Covid-19 epidemic caused him to no longer receive daily injections to treat deep vein thrombosis in his leg. He was originally treated at Pho Ai Hospital, but this place has been turned into a corona virus treatment center since January 23 and has no resources to treat patients like Fu.

His niece, Fu Yufen, said all he could do now was stay in bed. "He could not walk because his leg was so painful because he had not been injected for many days. Now going to the hospital is too dangerous because of the risk of cross-infection."

"Now that the city is in blockade, we cannot visit him. My grandmother, who is also frail, must take care of him himself. I am worried they will fall ill," Yufen said.

Yufen said the grandparents were helped by the local people, but she was worried about how long they could support them. Mr. Fu wrote the will last week.

Medical experts say that although patients with coronary virus deserve priority, those with other chronic and acute illnesses also need support. Tang Shenlan, a professor at the medical school at Duke University, said it was wrong to put all his resources into Covid-19 and neglect other seriously ill patients.

"Hospitals in Wuhan should find creative ways to provide essential services to these patients, such as remote treatment and diagnostics, or prescriptions," he said.

Yao Zelin, a professor at the East China Normal University in Shanghai, said the health system needs to be improved at the grassroots level. "China has focused on building large hospitals but is not interested in setting up a network of clinics. That means that in an emergency like the Covid-19 epidemic, only large hospitals will be able to fight the epidemic." "The large number of patients coming here will quickly exhaust the hospitals," Yao said.

Gregory Gray, a professor of infectious diseases at Duke University's Global Health Institute, said China needs to anticipate virus threats in order to respond sooner.

One way to do so is to encourage medical research in places where people are exposed to animals, such as live animal markets or farms. "We need to find ways to work more closely with each other, in terms of health, animal health, environment and agriculture," Gray said.