GUANGZHOU (Xinhua) -- Sitting in her wheelchair, a 101-year-old COVID-19 patient thanked the medical staff for providing her with five days of medical care for her treatment of the disease.

Old Li, who lives in the Haizhou district of Guangzhou, capital of southern China's Guangdong Province, which has witnessed a resurgence of the disease in the past few weeks, told the medical staff: "Thank you very much, I did not expect to be discharged from the hospital so quickly."

On November 21, the old woman showed symptoms such as high fever, coughing, and shortness of breath, while her DNA test results were positive. Due to her advanced age and underlying illnesses, she was rushed to the intensive care unit of Guangdong Second General Hospital.

After undergoing careful and specific medical treatments, old Li gradually began to recover and left the ward after only five days of hospitalization, becoming the oldest person to leave the isolation ward of the hospital during the latest wave of resurgence of the virus.

And about that; Sheng Rui, director of the hospital's critical care department, said that old Li was in a critical condition when she arrived at the hospital, with complications such as unconsciousness, dehydration and heart failure. In view of the malnutrition and dehydration that Old Li was suffering from as a result of her high temperature, Doctor Wei Yi immediately arranged for fluid restoration to relieve dehydration and electrolyte disturbances.

"At that time, the old woman was very weak and unable to speak, but the doctors and nurses spoke to her in Cantonese to encourage her and calm her fears," Xing added.

Seeing that Old Li also had a weak cough and weak sputum secretion, the nurses helped her to turn and adjust her body position every one to two hours, gently patting her back so that she could expel the sputum smoothly. Meanwhile, the ICU nutrition team developed a special nutrition plan for the patient's specific condition.

After two days of intensive treatment, old Li's body temperature began to drop, her inflammatory indicators returned to normal, her physical and mental condition improved significantly, and her lung symptoms improved effectively. After expert evaluation, she was transferred from the intensive care unit to the cardiovascular rehabilitation ward for further treatment, where she felt better and received a negative DNA test result.

On November 26, Lee's condition improved a lot and she was able to leave the hospital after recovering.

"As most of the elderly COVID-19 patients have underlying health conditions, they are relatively difficult to treat," said Lao Yu, deputy chief physician of the hospital's cardiovascular medicine department. "It was remarkable that old Li was able to overcome virus and recovering. We sincerely wish her good health."

From November 14 to December 7, the hospital received 2,016 COVID-19 patients, of whom 1,048 were discharged.
"If you do it honestly, you will be able to treat more patients. For elderly patients with underlying health conditions, intervention in the intensive care unit means a better chance of survival," Xing said, adding that the hospital has allocated about 200 beds. In the intensive care unit to treat critically ill patients.