Chapter 253: Planning for the long term

Zhang Fan's hospital only had simple patient rooms and operating rooms. There was no ICU department at his hospital. After the patients finished with their surgeries, they would directly go to their patient room. Usually, the anesthesiologist and nurse would bring the patient over to the patient room right after the surgery. However, since the child's surgery was rather special, Chen Qifa personally brought the child patient over to the patient room. Chen Qifa really loved to escort patients because he felt really proud when receiving the family members' gratitude!

The child patient was slowly brought out of the operating room on a gurney.

"My son!" Mothers would forever pay the most attention to their children. The mother who was originally so listless suddenly became reinvigorated when she saw her son. She swiftly rushed over.

"Be careful, be careful! Okay, the surgery was very successful." Chen Qifa acted just like a mother hen, protecting the child patient and not allowing the mother to rush over. "Go! Go! Don't block the entrance to the operating rooms. There's still another ongoing surgery inside."

"Doctor, is my mother's surgery almost finished?" A young girl who was wearing new clothing for the Spring Festival looked pitifully at Chen Qifa. Her mother had gone in for surgery first, yet the child patient's surgery was already finished without any sign of her mother coming out yet. She was already anxious to begin with, so now she became even more worried.

"Rest assured, it's almost done. She'll be out soon!" Chen Qifa consoled the middle-aged woman's daughter as he continued to escort the child patient to a patient room.

Due to Chen Qifa's attitude, the child's parents surrounded his bed and looked at their son. The young boy was still really weak. He had been frightened, truly tremendously frightened by this whole ordeal. Although the surgery was now finished, he really lacked energy, both mentally and physically. His lips were dry, and he looked expectantly at his mother, wanting to return to her embrace, but he didn't dare to say anything, because the scary doctor was at his side. The scary doctor would give him injections!

"Your son was quite lucky today. His fingers have been preserved. This surgery is just like planting a tree. His fingers were planted inside his arm for regrowth. It will take approximately two to three weeks, and then his fingers will come alive again," Chen Qifa explained to the parents who focused on his every word. "Right now, the fingers were just planted in the arm, and they're still really weak. Additionally, your son is young and doesn't understand much yet. As parents, you absolutely must watch over him closely, and not allow him to pull his fingers out of his arm! For the next few weeks, make sure that he eats only plain foods! Alright, you should hurry back home and put on some warm clothes. Don't catch a cold at this time. He still needs you to take care of him." Chen Qifa then started to leave.

The child's father was really anxious. This was great fortune among misfortune. Back when he heard that his son's fingers might have to be amputated at the Chinese medicine hospital, he felt as if his heart had been struck by lightning. He really wanted to be the one to suffer the pain instead of his son!

Now, the surgery was over, and the fingers had been preserved! It was as if the father's emotions had taken a roller coaster ride. He went from a valley to the peak! "Doctor, thank you, thank you~! We've truly troubled you so late at night. Here's some money, buy some food with it, eat something, eat whatever you like." His last sentence barely made sense, but his expression was extremely grateful.

Chen Qifa really loved this—the patients' gratitude, not money. At this moment, Chen Qifa felt like he was really grand as he pushed aside the father's money with a serious expression, and said, "This is what we should do. However, I must still scold you. You absolutely must watch your son properly. He's still young and doesn't understand much, but what about you adults? Don't you understand what's dangerous? You understand, right? Alright, thank you for your intentions, but please keep your money."

Chen Qifa puffed out his chest proudly as he left while taking large steps. The wind in the hallway gently lifted the corner of Chen Qifa's white doctor's jacket. He walked quite swiftly and resolutely!

If Chen Qifa had still been working at Kuake City Hospital, he would have secretly taken the money. Why wasn't he taking the money anymore? The surgery fee at Zhang Fan's hospital was roughly the same as it would be at a city hospital. But at Kuake City Hospital, Chen Qifa would get paid only 30 yuan for working overtime on this surgery during the Spring Festival. If the superintendent was in a good mood, then maybe he would receive a little extra as a bonus.

But at Zhang Fan's private hospital, Chen Qifa would get paid a bit over 1,000 yuan for this surgery! This wouldn't even have to depend on Zhang Fan's mood! This was Zhang Fan's management philosophy. Everyone would earn money together. The surgeons would be paid a percent of the surgery fee. It couldn't be seen right now, but this was just like planting a slow seed which would definitely grow up into a mighty tree one day. This was a better plan for the long term.

Inside the operating room, Li Liang was currently working on surgically reattaching the middle-aged woman's third and final cut off finger. Li Liang felt really strange inside right now. When performing surgery, he really wanted Zhang Fan to stand behind him so that Zhang Fan would give him recognition. However, Li Liang was also worried that he would do a poor job and disappoint Zhang Fan.

Zhang Fan saw that Li Liang was acting slightly unnatural, so he patted the latter on the back. "Pretty good, your movements are quite standard already. It looks like you've put in plenty of hard work, so I can rest assured. You can do the rest by yourself."

After saying this, Zhang Fan then told the anesthesiologist and nurses, "Thank you for your hard work during the holiday today. We can all eat some dumplings together afterwards. I'll go cook them right now!"

"Okay, Boss! Make sure to cook them fully!" The anesthesiologist chuckled as he joked with Zhang Fan. For this type of surgery, the anesthesiologist's job was really simple. All he had to do was occasionally check the electrocardiogram. There wasn't much else for him to do.

The medical equipment nurse and operating room nurse simply smiled at each other without saying anything. Actually, this simple conversation would reflect the food chain at the hospital. Since Zhang Fan was far too powerful, the doctors didn't dare to make any jokes at Zhang Fan's expense.

The anesthesiologist was in a slightly better position because no matter how skilled Zhang Fan was, it wasn't like Zhang Fan could lecture him on how to perform anesthesia! This was the trait of a workplace where skills mattered.

It took more than six hours before the surgery on the middle-aged woman was finally finished. Thankfully, due to the strength of China's national medical insurance program, the entire surgery fee would be covered by insurance. Even though it was only three fingers, the surgery fee and postoperative care treatment fee would add up to at least 50,000-60,000 yuan. This would be a tremendous expense for any normal family if it wasn't for insurance.

If it weren't for China's national medical insurance, then the patient might have chosen amputation instead! It wasn't about being stingy. Most ordinary families just wouldn't be able to afford such a major unexpected expense!

By the way, when mentioning Chinese medical insurance, this author must really criticize certain private hospitals. It really was quite terrible. The medical insurance money was supposed to be money for saving lives. However, some private hospitals would take advantage of this and advertise in really rural villages that checkups were free, and that the villagers could even get free meals and drinks!

Whenever it wasn't harvest time, the private hospital would then send large buses to bring all of the farmers who had medical insurance over to their hospital for all sorts of checkups—every type of checkup possible. The private hospital would also fake medical reports, fake prescriptions, and then scam the government out of all this medical insurance money. Evil scammers would always come up with ways to make money!

Zhang Fan and the others at his hospital ate an abundant feast together. There were all sorts of frozen dumplings with various meats and many different brands of sausages. Everyone put several desks together to create a large table. They were using one-time-use chopsticks as well as one-time-use paper cups.

It all tasted really good! Really, really good!

Li Liang kept devouring dumplings without even chewing. He had eaten lunch rather early so that he would have more room in his stomach for the Spring Festival dinner, yet he had been called over to perform a surgery instead. Thus, he hadn't gotten to eat for more than 12 hours already. He was starving!

Spring Festival meant that the southern flowers would already start blooming. Yet, Chasu City was still covered in snow. The nomadic district was even colder since it was at a higher elevation.

On television, if you saw a nomad having a cool appearance while running around on the plains, maybe you would be envious of how cool he looked. However, that would be nothing more than television. Nomads typically didn't live in fixed locations, as they needed to herd their livestock and seek fresh grass. This wasn't much trouble in summer, as they could simply live in tents anywhere, but that wouldn't do for winter. Here in the area around Chasu City, it wasn't uncommon for the temperature to be as low as -40 degrees Celsius. No tent would possibly be capable of dealing with the powerful wintry winds. Nomads had it quite difficult in winter.

Since tents couldn't be relied on, and it wasn't like the nomads could spend a lot of money to construct houses, they could only dig a winter home for themselves. What was that like? Basically, they would diagonally dig deep into the dirt, just like a rat would. If they wanted to exit this winter underground nest after some major snowfall, they would have to dig their way out first! These winter nests were the nomads' special technique for surviving the frigid winters.

The nomadic district actually lacked flammable materials more than anything. Things were better in the summer as they could simply rely on the sun. In winter, they would typically rely on dried cow dung that they had prepared during the summer.

By the time that it was almost spring, the nomads would be close to running out of all the cow dung that they had saved up. They would start reducing their cow dung use by as much as possible. They would stop boiling their milk, for instance.

In the cities, as knowledge about how to stay healthy constantly improved and was taught in schools, most people would pay attention to staying healthy and maintaining reasonable cleanliness. However, that wasn't possible in a place like that nomadic district!

Ake was a young nomad man who was in his mid-20s. Early this morning, he herded his sheep up onto the mountains. He was really thirsty and hungry, but he didn't want to use cow dung to heat up the milk today, as the cow dung was almost out. He decided to directly drink the freshly squeezed milk. It was really warm and delicious! Ake drank until his belly was full and he burped. He then continued riding his horse as he herded some sheep which had almost gotten separated from the pack. This would be a common breakfast for most nomads during the winter.

The snowy mountains, flocks of sheep, and incredibly wide snowy plains were beautiful, truly beautiful. However, it would really be a trial on any city dweller to live here. There would also be endless isolation and a lack of all sorts of resources, which would be a real test of your mentality.

Any person who was used to life in a city would likely go insane just because of how silent the mountains were, without even mentioning anything else!

Two days later, Ake became ill! His throat hurt, he lacked energy, he lacked appetite, and he had a fever.

"This is bad! Ake's forehead is really hot. We must go to a hospital!" Ake's father rubbed Ake's forehead while saying this to Ake's brothers.

Going to a hospital would be no simple matter for the nomads. The straight-line distance from where they were at to the hospital would only be about 90 kilometers. However, they were currently deep in the Tianshan Mountains. They would need to go around many mountains. The real distance that they would have to travel was more than 400 kilometers. Not only that, there were no roads and no cars. They could only ride their horses.

Two of Ake's older brothers tied Ake to a horse and set out. They needed to rush and get to a relative's pasture on the first night. Otherwise, staying out in the open in the mountains during winter would be more than enough to freeze the three brothers to death!

"Ake! Are you alright?" Ake's older brother kept asking him while pulling on the reins of Ake's horse.

"I'm okay!" Ake responded listlessly. He was feeling uncomfortable, really uncomfortable all over!

They rushed as much as they could. On the third day after setting out, they finally arrived at a small village. This village was really small, and only had a population of a few hundred. This was a village where some nomad families would spend the winter. The government had intentionally spent some resources to help construct a village here. This village also had a health center.

"He's burning up with a 40 degrees 1 fever!" The doctor at the health center checked Ake's temperature and hurriedly tried to lower the fever, but his efforts weren't very effective. "Hurry and send him to the nearest city hospital!" Things were better in the village. There were cars as well as medicine. However, the health center's doctor was unable to diagnose Ake's problem. Still, he did his best to treat Ake's symptoms.

There were very few doctors still on duty at the nearest small city hospital since it was the Spring Festival. The emergency department doctor on duty didn't even have a medical license. When he saw Ake, he immediately said, "Hurry and take him to Chasu City Hospital! His condition is too severe for us to help him!"