SMILE AGAIN: Eight-month-old Zhao Shuirong, who was injured on her left leg by collapsed buildings during the earthquake, plays with one of her many toys given by visiting volunteers in Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University

Zhong's wife, who works as a nurse at a hospital in his hometown, is busy disinfecting earthquake debris and taking care of mildly injured people. She has visited her husband once since he was hospitalized in Deyang.

"We immediately asked her to leave and to go back to work," said Zhong. "I will be taken care of and I have great faith in our government."

All-out medical support

By May 26, Southwest Hospital had received more than 160 injured people from the earthquake zone, from five to 96 years old, the majority of whom had injury complications and urgently needed operations. Xu Jianzhong, Director of the Department of Orthopedics that accommodated most of the injured people, said while two thirds of surgeons in his department had joined the hospital's rescue teams stationed in the earthquake zone, the remaining four surgeons at the hospital were conducting operations on the injured from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. almost every day.

The hospital sent out its first medical team to Sichuan less than nine hours after the earthquake, becoming the first medical team from Chongqing to Sichuan. The hospital's second medical team of 35 people had to climb mountains for several miles with medical equipment on their shoulders to reach Yingxiu Town, amid landslides caused by aftershocks on May 14. They were the first medical team to arrive in the devastated town.

Despite the support of medical teams from other provinces, hospitals and clinics in Sichuan soon found it impossible to handle the flood of patients with serious injuries. On May 18, there were 122,252 injured people in Sichuan's hospitals and clinics. People's Hospital in Mianyang City, where the earthquake killed over 20,000 people, at one time accommodated more than 1,500 injured people although the hospital has only 701 beds. Some of the injured had to be treated in makeshift camps.

On May 18, the Ministry of Health issued a circular, requiring the neighboring Chongqing Municipality to prepare 5,000 beds in hospitals and another three neighboring provinces to prepare 1,000 beds each for transferred patients from Sichuan.

In order to make 800 beds ready immediately for patients from Sichuan, Southwest Hospital activated an emergency plan to empty 150 beds on May 15. Xu said patients in general showed great understanding about the hospital's plan by agreeing to delay operations or rehabilitate at home.

Chongqing Municipal Government is paying for the medical expenses and food for the injured, as well as meals for relatives taking care of the injured.

By May 25, 48 hospitals in Chongqing had treated 2,275 injured people from Sichuan's earthquake zone. By May 26, medical teams from Chongqing to Sichuan, totaling 899 people, had treated over 13,900 people. According to the Ministry of Health, as of May 26, Sichuan's eight neighboring provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, including Chongqing, had fulfilled their tasks in receiving organized transfers of injured people from the earthquake.

Same culture

During his visit to see injured people from Sichuan, Chongqing Governor Wang Hongju said, "Chongqing and Sichuan are one big family. You should feel at home and Chongqing will use its best hospitals and best doctors to cure you as soon as possible."

Before Chongqing became China's fourth municipality directly under the Central Government after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin on March 14, 1997, it had been the largest city of Sichuan Province. Chongqing Municipality also includes Wanxian City, Fuling City and Qianjiang Region, which were originally under the jurisdiction of Sichuan.

The jurisdiction change of separating Chongqing from Sichuan does not change the fact that people from this area share the same cultural origin, dialect, obsession with spicy hot pot and passion for Sichuan Opera.

Following the earthquake on May 12, Chongqing Municipal Government sent a telegraph to Sichuan Provincial Government, volunteering to provide aid. This was despite the fact that 16 people had also died in Chongqing and the municipality had suffered economic losses of 800 million yuan ($114 million).

Within 24 hours of the earthquake, Chongqing became the first among Chinese provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions to send an emergency communication repair team to restore disrupted communications, professional rescue teams, medical rescue teams, cargo trucks carrying medication, medical equipment and daily necessities, such as quilts, flash lights and candles as well as an electricity facility repair team. Jiangbei International Airport in Chongqing has become an important transfer center for earthquake relief material from across China and other countries.

Grassroots support

The day after the earthquake, thousands of Chongqing citizens queued in front of blood donation stands to give blood for the wounded. Blood stations in Chongqing had full reserves in less than two days. Over 30 restaurants in Chongqing sent out a team of chefs to Dujiangyan, one of the worst-hit cities, to cook Sichuan cuisine for the homeless. Shortly after the earthquake, a team of more than 1,000 volunteers from Chongqing went to help, including policemen taking their annual vacations and bank employees who had quit their jobs to go.

Half a day after Chongqing Evening News carried a report on seven injured children in need of teachers on May 26, over 300 Chongqing citizens made calls to the newspaper volunteering to treat the children. They included teachers, retirees, college students and policemen.

The Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, the best children's hospital in the municipality, has a ward guard at its gate around the clock. It houses more than 30 injured children transferred from the earthquake zone, aged between eight months and 17 years old.

"So many warm-hearted Chongqing citizens have flocked to the hospital to visit these children that we finally have to keep them out to give our children a quiet environment to rest and rehabilitate," said Liang Ke, Director of the Information Office of the hospital. The new policy of the hospital is that visitors can give gifts to the injured children's families outside the ward and encouraging words can be written down in letters, which are given to the children by hospital staff.

Liang told Beijing Review that mountains of gifts had arrived for the children and the hospital had suggested that food donations be refused as too much was being given.

Although all child patients have at least one family member taking care of them, many people still volunteer to help. For the best of the children, the hospital has mainly recruited students from Chongqing Medical University whose major is nursing and psychological therapy. Doctors have found it hard to refuse sincere requests to help. "One grandma in her 70s came to our hospital to be a volunteer, saying she was great with children and that she had brought up several grandchildren. We felt sorry to refuse her, but we had so many volunteers already," said Luo Cong, one of the three doctors in charge of the ward.

On May 26, Chongqing released a list of 3,000 job vacancies especially for Sichuan earthquake victims. According to a report in Chongqing Evening News on May 27, the companies providing the vacancies said they had tried their best to give the lowest requirements.

In June, nearly 100 restaurants in Chongqing planned to jointly hold job fair in Sichuan, which will provide about 100,000 positions for people made jobless by the earthquake.