China: the anguish of Covid-19 positive parents separated from their children in Shanghai
Healthcare workers carry out mass testing in a Shanghai building on March 20, 2022. © Xihao Jiang / Reuters
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
Another day of confinement for the 26 million inhabitants of Shanghai, as the Chinese economic capital faces its worst outbreak of Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.
With, beyond the fear of the virus, the anxiety for parents of being separated from their children in the event of a positive test.
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From our office in Beijing,
Stéphane Lagarde
and
Louise May
The images went around the Chinese web this Friday evening, April 1.
Videos and photos showing children walking alone or crying infants lying in rows of onions in small beds with iron bars have aroused the anger of Internet users, starting with parents devoured by worry.
Ms Zhu tested positive for
Covid-19
, she has not seen her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter for four days.
“
We were diagnosed positive on March 26.
And then on the 29th, the hospital told us that we had to be transferred and separated.
I said no.
My daughter is too small.
But they insisted.
And under pressure, I agreed to have my child taken to the clinic in Jinshan
,” she says.
The Jinshan public health clinic in Shanghai, where positive children under the age of 6 are isolated,
reacted this
Saturday
.
The images broadcast on the networks would not come from the quarantine center for minors, they would have been taken during an internal movement of the pediatric service of the hospital.
"
Due to the increase in the number of children infected with the new coronavirus and in order to improve the hospital environment, our hospital has adapted the pediatric department to the outpatient and emergency department building.
As the number of children admitted continues to increase, the internal layout of the department is necessary (…) An additional pediatric medical team has come to reinforce the pediatric department in order to optimize the admission and treatment process and to strengthen the communication with parents
,” the hospital says.
"We don't know what's going on there"
Separation coupled with a lack of information is the main anxiety of families in China.
Ms Zhu said she heard from her daughter today
via
a WeChat messaging group with her estranged husband at a third hospital, two nurses and a doctor.
She is worried, she learned that her daughter had a slight fever three days ago.
“
My request is very simple, I want my daughter to come back to me, I want to take care of her.
We don't know what's going on there.
When I saw Jinshan's video (Friday) night, I went crazy!
My daughter is alone, she is only two and a half years old
, ”warns the mother.
According to the WeChat account of the Chinese Women's Association in an article titled "
in negotiation
", 53 children confirmed positive and 252 others asymptomatic have been taken care of by the Jinshan clinic
since the start of the resurgence of Covid-19 in Shanghai. .
The director of a charity this week in Hong Kong
told the
South China Morning Post
that up to 2,000 children under the age of 10 have been separated from their parents in Hong Kong hospitals in the past six weeks after being caught the Covid-19.
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