10 years on, SARS trauma still persists(3)

SACRIFICE FOR NOTHING?

In 2004, pain and staggering medical bills forced Fang to group with more than 100 other SARS survivors in Beijing to seek government support. They wrote many letters to local health authorities and other government agencies to voice their grievances.

Their efforts yielded some positive results, including free joint replacement surgery and free medication for bone and lung disease starting in 2005. In 2008, depression and other psychological illnesses became free to treat for the survivors.

Fang said SARS caused serious sequelaes in 156 survivors in Beijing, four of whom died over the past decade. About 130 became disabled.

The figure was confirmed by the Beijing Federation for the Disabled, but it does not include medical workers who were infected on the job.

"They are heroes who fell ill while saving others. Theoretically, all their medical expenses are covered by their employers, but in fact, many of them are suffering from poverty and inadequate care," said Fang.

Wu Zhen, 37, is among the dozens of medical workers who were left unable to work.

When the SARS scare seized Beijing, Wu, a nurse at a community hospital in the southern Fengtai District, was receiving on-the-job training by working as an intern at the emergency ward of the downtown People's Hospital.

"I had close contact with many fever patients every day," Wu said. She and her colleagues had all heard of SARS, but thought it had little to do with them. A mask and a pair of disposable gloves were their only protection.

Wu was one of more than 90 doctors and nurses who were infected at the People's Hospital as a result of inadequate protection.

Seven months after she was treated for SARS, Wu was diagnosed with severe osteonecrosis. Since the small hospital where she worked could not afford to cover all her medical expenses, she waited until after the city government offered free medication for SARS sequelae in 2005.

She has spent the past five years in the hospital -- not as a nurse, but as a patient. She has received two surgeries to replace her thighbones, with the most recent surgery performed only last month.

Wu tried to seek compensation and was frustrated by the buck-passing that occurred between the hospital that employed her and the People's Hospital where she was infected. Her colleagues donated 60,000 yuan, which covered her medical bills for two years.

Unable to work, she is paid 1,700 yuan (275 U.S. dollars) a month. Beijingers' average monthly income was 4,672 yuan in 2011, the most recent time that such data was made available.

Wu is single and often feels gloomy and isolated. "I wish I could fully recover, go back to work, get married and live like an ordinary woman," she said.

A nurse who shared a ward with Wu said she worries that her employer might eventually abandon her.

"In the wake of the SARS outbreak they called me a 'hero' and promised to help me out," the nurse said on condition of anonymity. "But today, few people still remember me and it's increasingly hard to get the aid I need."

"We just did our job and never thought we were heroes," she said. "But we hope that our sacrifices were not in vain and that our woes will be heard and addressed properly so that our colleagues will still stand up and do their job in case of future epidemic outbreaks."