Chapter 249 - 248: Major Medical Incident

Chapter 249: Chapter 248: Major Medical Incident

October 7th, Monday. Huashan Hospital, which had only taken a six-day break for the National Day holiday, resumed normal operations.

Yu Zhiming had gotten back to his residence in Zijin Garden close to one in the morning, but he arrived at Huashan Hospital just after eight this morning.

He greeted a few colleagues from the center who had also arrived early and handed out some local products his Fourth Sister had brought from his hometown, like roasted peanuts, walnuts, and jujubes.

Yu Zhiming knew Zhou Mo had taken a liking to his family’s homemade sweet potato strips, so he gave her two extra jars.

Afterward, Yu Zhiming took Qiao Lei to the outpatient and emergency department. After exchanging a few pleasantries with familiar faces, he went to consultation room number fifteen on the second floor and began his day of seeing patients.

Perhaps because of the backlog from the holiday, Yu Zhiming diagnosed seven or eight registered patients in a row, and the results were far from good.

Although they hadn’t reached the stage of cancer, the conditions Yu Zhiming found in these people—affecting their hearts, lungs, stomachs, and livers—either required surgery to be scheduled as soon as possible or hospitalization for condition management and treatment.

This trend of diagnosing rather serious conditions continued right up until the lunch break.

Yu Zhiming hurried from the consultation room toward the hospital cafeteria for lunch, turning on his tablet’s screen as he walked.

Today was a big day: payday.

The hospital usually issued salaries on the sixth of each month. Due to the National Day holiday, this month’s payday was postponed to the seventh.

Using his tablet, Yu Zhiming logged into the hospital’s system and checked his personal income details.

The first thing he saw was a dazzling figure: this month’s net pay, 452,327.35 yuan.

This amount was a little more than Yu Zhiming had expected.

Yu Zhiming looked at the income details and found that the extra income came mainly from two sources.

First was the bonus from the Qi Yue Medical Research Center, which had skyrocketed from last month’s 25,000 to nearly 370,000 yuan.

Yu Zhiming knew that most of this came from the 600,000 yuan check given by Ge Yunlun from the Capital City.

However, after going through the hospital’s finance department, the 600,000 had become just over 300,000, a reduction of almost half.

’Talk about taking a huge cut.’

The other area of significant income increase came from the new ultra-early stage cancer research project.

This included a project stipend of 60,000 yuan.

And physical examination service fees of nearly 24,000 yuan.

Yu Zhiming looked at the summary column again. The gross pay was 581,257.27 yuan.

He did a quick calculation. The deductions for insurance, personal income tax, and other items totaled nearly 130,000 yuan.

Yu Zhiming put away his tablet, took his phone out of his white coat pocket, and scrolled through his unread messages.

Just as he expected, he saw a bank notification for a deposit of 725,638.57 yuan.

This was last month’s income from Ning’an Hospital.

Yu Zhiming did a quick mental calculation. From that one-million-yuan payment, Ning’an Hospital had deducted about 330,000 for financial fees and personal income tax.

This deduction rate was significantly lower than Huashan Hospital’s.

This made Yu Zhiming decide then and there.

In the future, it would be better to process any large freelance surgery fees through Ning’an Hospital’s finance department.

After checking his income data, Yu Zhiming sent a message to his Fourth Sister.

He told her last month’s salary had been paid and asked her to transfer 6,000 to their parents and 3,000 to their eldest sister.

Yu Zhiming also told his Fourth Sister that she could withdraw money from his bank account as needed for the development of her short-term rental apartment business...

Yu Zhiming got a hearty meal at the staff cafeteria and found a relatively secluded table with Qiao Lei.

He took a few bites and asked casually, "Qiao Lei, you got paid for last month too, right? Is it enough?"

Qiao Lei chuckled. "Yep, I got it. It’s not bad."

"My base salary, plus the center’s stipend and bonus, and the service fee from the ultra-early stage cancer project... it all adds up to over ten thousand."

"With this income, it’s impossible to save up enough to find a girlfriend and buy a house in Binhai, but it’s more than enough for my own personal expenses."

Yu Zhiming teased, "Qiao Lei, a guy like you doesn’t have to struggle."

"I hear Binhai has plenty of rich older women."

Qiao Lei said with a righteous expression, "A real man stands tall and proud. How could I live off a woman?"

"Unless, of course, she’s young, beautiful, and rich."

Yu Zhiming scoffed and shot the fantasizing guy a look.

Just then, Yu Zhiming’s phone rang.

It was a call from Qi Yue.

"Zhiming, the Qidong Medical Research Institute has researchers of all levels, graduate students, and other staff members, totaling over ninety people."

"My idea is to split them into two or three groups and have them come over in the evenings for their physicals."

"Zhiming, what do you think?"

Yu Zhiming thought for a moment and said, "Teacher, let’s split them into two groups. Starting today, have them come at six in the evening."

"The sooner we finish, the sooner everyone can have peace of mind!"

After a pause, Yu Zhiming asked, "Teacher, have the safety inspections over there turned up anything?"

Qi Yue sighed lightly over the phone. "They haven’t conducted a full inspection over there yet. They said they’re afraid of causing unnecessary panic."

"That institute director also said that Xie Mei and her assistant getting cancer might just be a coincidence. He wants to wait for the results of the first group’s physicals before deciding on the next step."

Yu Zhiming said, his voice laced with displeasure, "What’s with that director? He’s just banking on wishful thinking."

"There’s no such thing as a small matter when it comes to health. Even if it turns out to be a false alarm, it’s always better than a delayed reaction."

Qi Yue said in a deep voice, "The institute might have other considerations."

"Over there, they’ve already suspended everyone’s work under the pretext of critical equipment inspection and maintenance..."

After lunch, Yu Zhiming didn’t take a break and returned to the consultation room to continue his work.

The diagnoses for the afternoon’s registered patients were still not optimistic; the majority were serious cases requiring surgery or hospitalization.

A little after three in the afternoon, Yu Zhiming met with the brother of yesterday’s patient with intellectual decline and took the imaging scans and lab reports he was handed.

Yu Zhiming looked at the scans and discovered the source of the problem.

Two small arterial branches in the temporal lobe of the brain were entangled at their bifurcation.

It was either a small aneurysm or a vascular malformation.

Yu Zhiming explained his findings to the patient’s brother, then continued, "Next, you need to see Dr. You Weixian in neurosurgery for the next stage of treatment."

"I’ll give Doctor You a heads-up."

"You can go straight to him."

The patient’s brother hesitated for a moment and asked, "Dr. Yu, can’t my brother be treated by you?"

Yu Zhiming admitted frankly, "My greatest strength is in discovering problems and diagnosing conditions, not solving them."

"Your brother’s condition will very likely require cranial surgery, and that is definitely not my specialty."

The patient’s brother said, "Oh," and then asked, "Dr. Yu, is this cranial surgery very expensive?"

Yu Zhiming nodded. "Relatively speaking, the standard fees for cranial surgery are higher than for operations on other parts of the body."

"As for how much your brother’s treatment will cost exactly, I can’t say for sure."

"When the time comes, you should ask Doctor You. He’ll be able to give you a more accurate figure..."

A little after five-thirty in the afternoon, Yu Zhiming finished diagnosing all fifty registered patients.

He then hurried back to the Qi Yue Medical Research Center to begin the cancer screening for the fifty volunteers in the ultra-early stage cancer project.

During the rapid screening of these fifty people, Yu Zhiming discovered one suspected case of stomach cancer.

After six-thirty in the evening, Yu Zhiming didn’t take a break. He only drank half a glass of milk before starting the full-body examinations for the staff from the Qidong Medical Research Institute who had arrived.

After examining ten people, Yu Zhiming couldn’t sit still any longer.

Among those ten, he had found one suspected case of throat cancer and one of colon cancer.

Adding the two cases from last night, the detection rate for cancer was just too high, far too unusual.

Sensing the gravity of the situation, Yu Zhiming immediately paused the examinations and ran to the director’s office to find his teacher, Qi Yue.

"Teacher, Teacher, I’ve found two more suspected cancer cases out of just ten people! This cancer detection rate is outrageous."

"Something is definitely very wrong."

Qi Yue’s expression was also grim.

"This qualifies as a major medical incident."

"Zhiming, you go back and continue their physicals for now. I’ll be in charge of reporting this to the hospital and the municipal Ministry of Health..."

Yu Zhiming returned to the examination room and continued performing full-body check-ups on the people from the institute.

He hadn’t even finished when Vice Director Huang, who was on duty, arrived in a flurry along with several other mid-level hospital administrators.

What surprised Yu Zhiming even more was that they were all wearing sealed hazmat suits.

"Dr. Yu, what’s the count?"

"Five suspected cancer cases."

Although the number five wasn’t large, it made the hearts of everyone present sink.

Vice Director Huang said gravely, "Dr. Yu, given this extremely high cancer detection rate and the unknown cause..."

"Assuming the worst-case scenario, we will first proceed under the assumption that this is caused by an unknown infectious virus."

"As a precaution..."

Seeing them all in sealed hazmat suits, Yu Zhiming understood. They were going to handle this according to Level 1 infectious disease protocols.

He nodded and said, "Dean Huang, I understand. We need to be quarantined. No one in or out."

Vice Director Huang reassured him, "Dr. Yu, don’t worry. I’ve already been notified that the municipal Ministry of Health is urgently assembling relevant experts into two task forces."

"One task force will go to the Qidong Medical Research Institute to conduct a field investigation and search for a possible virus and cause. Another task force will come here to investigate the cause of the cancer."

"We expect to find the cause overnight..."

After seeing the hospital leaders out, Zhou Mo went to the window and said with a worried expression, "Dr. Yu, there are people downstairs setting up a quarantine line. Our whole building has been isolated."

"Is it really caused by an unknown infectious virus?"

Yu Zhiming reassured her, "A virus is unlikely. I’ve never heard of a single virus that can induce multiple types of cancer."

"Radiation is a stronger possibility."

He then said, feigning a relaxed tone, "In any case, we’re all close contacts now. There’s no point in worrying blindly."

"The screenings aren’t over. Zhou Mo, get back to work and call in the next person..."