Chapter 1221 - Selective

Though the prognosis remained uncertain, Shi Niaoren still represented the Health Department in informing the anxiously waiting Lu Shouyong—whose expression was a tangle of emotions—that his wife had regained consciousness.

Hearing that his wife was out of danger, Lu Shouyong finally breathed a sigh of relief. For wealthy families, "an official promoted and wife lost" was considered a joyous occasion, but for common folk, it was a catastrophic blow. Marrying his wife and buying a house had cost him and his father all their savings from years of work at the shipyard.

While overwhelmed with gratitude for the "Chiefs'" life-saving grace, he remained anxious. After all, his wife would be "hospitalized for a month," and how to care for the child had become a major problem—especially since nursing was involved.

Fortunately, Ai Beibei had considered this aspect too. She explained that the child could continue staying in the nursery with formula feeding by nurses until the mother recovered and was discharged.

"Go handle the paperwork first, then go home and bring back clothes and supplies for both mother and baby. Also bring your medical card—with your child being hospitalized, you'll need both spouses' cards."

"Yes, yes, I'll go get them right away! Thank you, Chiefs, for your great kindness!" Lu Shouyong was so overwhelmed he didn't know what to say. Forgetting all "propriety," he immediately dropped to his knees and kowtowed.

Ai Beibei finally managed to extricate herself from the effusive gratitude of the emotionally devastated but ultimately overjoyed and slightly manic Lu Shouyong. She returned to her office.

Her whole body ached, but the day's work wasn't over. She was also the Pediatrics Director—a position that weighed heavily on her. Though she'd studied pediatrics in university, she'd never worked a single day in a pediatric ward. When it came to pediatric experience, she was less experienced than Zhang Ziyi, the nursing supervisor who'd actually rotated through various hospital departments.

Moreover, Ai Beibei was soft-hearted and couldn't bear to see children suffer. The Third Outpatient Department's pediatric unit, besides treating transmigrator and naturalized citizen children, was also responsible for children in the quarantine camps—especially treating and caring for the large numbers of orphans they'd taken in. These children had mostly been chronically malnourished, with extremely poor immune resistance. They often succumbed to very minor illnesses.

For general internal and surgical diseases, the Senate's current medical standards could provide some degree of treatment. Even when cure wasn't possible, they could at least provide some relief. Maternal and child healthcare had also seen qualitative leaps, especially with the preparation of a batch of vaccines that provided effective prevention and treatment for many fatal childhood infections. The local infant smallpox infection rate in Lingao had plummeted to less than two per thousand after their vigorous promotion of cowpox vaccination, dramatically reducing mortality.

But pediatric treatment was different from adults. Especially for newborns and infants, whose organ functions were not fully developed, medication had to be administered with extreme caution. Moreover, the drugs and vaccines produced by the Health Department's manufacturing facility, limited by technical capabilities, all had purity issues. Often it was a matter of treating a dead horse as if it were still alive. In short, pediatric mortality was high—something she'd always found emotionally difficult to accept.

These past few days, there was a naturalized citizen's child in pediatrics with a severe respiratory infection. Days of treatment with factory-produced antibiotics had proven ineffective. Ai Beibei knew that if she couldn't use old-timeline anti-inflammatory drugs on him, he probably wouldn't survive. Though many anti-inflammatory drugs were no longer "first-tier controlled materials," actually using them on naturalized citizens still required Director Shi's approval. Ai Beibei shook her head. This was precisely why she didn't want another child—such differential treatment felt too stark and too cruel.

Regardless, she'd at least get an X-ray today—X-ray authority she still had. She'd assess the severity from the film, then consider whether to apply for medication.

Early the next morning, Shi Niaoren, having finally slept through the night, ate a hasty breakfast and went to check on Lu Shouyong's wife. Though her thinking was somewhat sluggish and she couldn't get out of bed, her memory was basically unaffected. She could answer questions from Shi Niaoren and her family, and even asked to see her baby. Shi Niaoren arranged for the child to be brought from the nursery so she could hold her newborn son.

After Head Nurse Zhang Ziyi personally changed the dressing on her post-intubation wound, Director Shi called Traditional Chinese Medicine Department Director Liu San to the ward to give her acupuncture—claimed to have brain-awakening and spirit-calming effects. He also instructed Liu San to prescribe some nerve-nourishing medicines and tonics for the patient. Only then did he leave the ward and return to his long-neglected Health Department office.

Ever since becoming Director and Hospital Chief, administrative matters had avalanched onto his head—and the avalanche grew larger month by month. These past few days, occupied with medical duties, performing several surgeries in a row, plus consultations and teaching, paperwork had piled up on the side. Now the Director's massive desk was buried under mountains of documents.

The documents had been sorted by his Health Department and General Hospital secretaries into neat, categorized piles. But Shi Niaoren knew that just signing and stamping all these documents would be enough to give him carpal tunnel syndrome, never mind actually reading them.

Yet he had to read them—who knew what private agenda Deng Bojun might have slipped in. That man was most skilled at such covert maneuvers. Shi Niaoren had to stay vigilant.

Director Shi sat before his desk for a while, painfully raised his head, and was about to reach for the first document when Zhang Ziyi pushed open the door and entered.

Zhang Ziyi held up an X-ray film and handed it to Shi Niaoren: "Director Shi, here's a film that Dr. Ai would like you to look at."

Shi Niaoren turned to catch the sunlight, held up the film, and read it against the sun. The lighting wasn't ideal, but he made do: "Reduced translucency, dense—patchy shadows, the apex seems dull... Remember to install a film viewing light in my office. Can't see clearly outside the reading room... Hopefully it's just lobular pneumonia, not atelectasis..."

"Looks like a child's film? Which transmigrator child?"

Zhang Ziyi replied: "No, it's a naturalized citizen's child. One year and three months old, fever for over a month with coughing. On admission, physical exam showed poor spirits, coarse breath sounds in both lungs with some wet rales, liver about 2.5 centimeters below the rib margin. Sulfonamide treatment in hospital has been ineffective. Bilateral lower limb edema appeared yesterday. Dr. Ai Beibei decided to take an X-ray, and besides bronchopneumonia, she confirmed bilateral pleural effusion and interlobar effusion."

Shi Niaoren frowned slightly upon hearing this: "Didn't we say the X-ray tube is who knows how many generations from being reverse-engineered, and for non-transmigrators and family members, use requires careful signature authorization..." Then he immediately switched to a smile: "Haha, though we infectious disease doctors can play omnipotent doctors like in that American TV show House M.D., there are still unfamiliar conditions, haha... Actually, infants' respiratory tract local immunity is incomplete, with poor ability to localize airway inflammation. Lobular pneumonia develops at the drop of a hat. At this stage, children's airway diameter is relatively small, mucosal tissue is rich, secretory glands are active, and respiratory infections easily lead to small airway obstruction, so wheezing sounds occur easily... Infant lung compensatory capacity is insufficient, plus the diaphragm fatigues easily. After pulmonary inflammation, respiratory failure develops easily. Since most pneumonia is accompanied by bronchial inflammation and obstruction, it mainly manifests as Type II respiratory failure... When nursing, pay attention to keeping the patient's airway clear, clearing respiratory secretions, turning and back-patting, relieving airway spasm..."

Shi Niaoren finished his round of deflection and finally managed to send Zhang Ziyi away. He knew very well why Ai Beibei had sent her—but he truly couldn't bring himself to decide. Even these nearly-expiring antibiotics were becoming scarcer...

He'd just started processing a few documents when suddenly the door was pushed open forcefully. In came an irate Ai Beibei.

"Oh my, Dr. Ai, what brings you here?" Seeing the situation wasn't favorable, Shi Niaoren quickly adopted his "busy but still caring for fellow colleagues" smile.

Ai Beibei spoke seriously: "Old Shi, the patient's lower limb edema appeared after multiple days of sulfonamide treatment, indicating the condition is worsening to the point of cardiac-induced bilateral lower limb edema. Shouldn't you at least mention upgrading the antibiotics? As for this X-ray film, though the Chemical Department can't produce photographic film yet, at the last Planning Commission briefing they said both celluloid and silver halide photosensitive materials will be producible domestically soon. This shows there are always more solutions than problems. Eventually we can make X-ray tubes too. Why be so stingy with naturalized citizens loyal to us? For that exploiting-class gentleman Liu Dalin, who doesn't know farming from weeding, you sent medicine and doctors, even sent Zhang Ziyi to care for him for so many days. Now when ordinary people need treatment, you won't spend a single hair?"

Shi Niaoren was growing embarrassed: "Liu Dalin was by instruction of the Executive Committee, er, the Senate... Little Ai, I'm actually a human rights advocate too. You know how many military otaku wanting to test their killing machines at our clinical experimental base in Fu Youdi's place I've driven off with scolding? But you have to understand, human rights aren't heaven-given—they develop along with society. Before we transmigrated, our laws and government work reports said we all enjoyed basic medical care. After transmigrating, with productivity levels dropping, didn't the basic medical care we used to enjoy also disappear? Isn't our Health Department fighting hard for universal public medical care right now? Of course, conditions aren't quite mature yet. In my opinion, these barefoot doctors we're training in three-month batches are basically mass-produced quacks. At least after they've gotten their Class A diploma, systematically studied for two years to reach vocational school level, then received two years of clinical training under our guidance to reach the level of a county-level quack from the '60s or '70s, they can show their faces! But training them now can still fill gaps in grassroots healthcare, can still play an indispensable role in historical development... Besides, the natives of this timeline are already used to early childhood mortality..."

(End of Chapter)