It’s been six years since Dr. Li Wenliang passed away in Wuhan.

普通人李文亮

Li Wenliang, an Ordinary Man

Published in 人物 People on February 7, 2020

by 罗婷 Luo Ting, 杨宙 Yang Zhou, and 罗芊 Luo Qian

Edited by 糖槭 Tangqi

Last night at 11 p.m., when a People reporter arrived at the inpatient building of the Houhu campus of Wuhan Central Hospital, two of Li Wenliang’s university classmates had already been waiting there for half an hour. They were also doctors in Wuhan, sent by their entire class to see him. But visiting hours were already over, and the entrance to the inpatient building had been blocked off—they couldn’t get in.

It was late. The building was still brightly lit. The second floor was the ICU where Li Wenliang was being resuscitated. Several floors above, his parents—also infected with COVID—were hospitalized as well. His classmates were worried about them and called Li Wenliang’s father, hoping they could go upstairs to keep him company. But hospital staff were with his father and refused the request over the phone. Later, they spoke with Li Wenliang’s pregnant wife, who was out of town. She was anxious and worried but didn’t know the latest information. They told her, “If there’s any news, we’ll call you the first moment we hear it.”

Just after midnight, the hospital was still continuing its efforts to save Li Wenliang. But a nurse from inside the building—dressed very lightly—came down alone to the first floor and burst into tears. First, she leaned against the wall crying; then she crouched on the floor and cried. Even from more than ten meters away, her sobs were clearly audible, echoing through the quiet hospital in the middle of the night.

His classmates talked about Li Wenliang’s condition. A few days earlier, Li Wenliang had given a media interview and seemed to be in good spirits. But in fact, for more than ten days, he had never been taken off a ventilator. One classmate said, “That was already a very bad sign.”

Yesterday afternoon, Li Wenliang was transferred from the Nanjing Road campus of Wuhan Central Hospital to the Houhu campus. According to this classmate, the reason was that he now needed ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), but the Nanjing Road campus didn’t have it—their equipment had all been reassigned to Jinyintan