Chapter 261: There are no do overs in life

Everyone would have different lives of varying lengths. When Zhang Fan entered the AIDS patient's room again to give him a cigarette, the AIDS patient had already passed away! To the patient, this was a release from his pain! Although the patient was now dead, he still had a rather vicious expression even in death.

The virus had already invaded his brain. His brainwaves had actually been rather chaotic during his weakness. With a weak body and chaotic brainwaves, he had died with an expression of utter fear. Maybe he had seen something terrifying while on the verge of life and death!

The patient's face was already extremely gaunt. His eyes protruded, making them seem much larger than normal! His entire face was distorted because of fear! In between his dry lips, white flagella which resembled tentacles continued to wave! With the patient's fear before death, all of his muscles lost their original functions, causing him to both pee and poop himself!

The patient hadn't eaten for many days already. He spurted feces which were yellow and contained blood! Zhang Fan pressed the bell in the patient's room. The nurse on duty arrived.

"He's passed away!" Zhang Fan informed the young nurse.

The young nurse hid behind Zhang Fan when she saw the terrifying corpse on the bed. "Why does this person have such a scary appearance! Doctor Zhang, I'm afraid!" She grabbed onto Zhang Fan's sleeve. He could sense that her hands were trembling.

"It's fine. Go and call for all the other nurses. You won't be able to deal with this by yourself! Sigh!" Although the patient was now dead, there was still much work to be done. First of all, the nurses would need to clean up the bed and blanket in a normal situation. However, in this specific situation, everything that the AIDS patient had tainted would need to be destroyed. Someone would have to be the ones to destroy these items, and that would be the young nurses in the department!

The nurses would need to withstand incredible disgust and tremendous fear as they cleaned all of this up. This work was truly inhumane. These nurses were typically still in their early 20s, the age where they were pretty blooming flowers. Yet, they would have to withstand incredible repulsion, to an extent that ordinary people wouldn't even be capable of imagining. This was their work! Please treat these angels in white well!

Whenever a patient died, the first thing would be to notify the director of the department. The infectious diseases director was currently performing outpatient services. If this had been any other department, where the patient died of some other normal illness, the director would have to be present if it was daytime in order to be in charge of handling certain things.

However, the infectious diseases director simply said one thing regarding this patient. "Notify the patient's family, and have the body cremated! Also, talk to the patient's family about the medical fees."

Zhang Fan was rather unlucky. The AIDS patient had died while he was the one on duty, so he was left in charge of the work regarding the patient's death. When this debt collector AIDS patient was hospitalized, Chen Feng's family had paid a small deposit. However, maybe they had consulted a lawyer as they now claimed that Chen Feng's actions were only in self-defense, so Chen Feng shouldn't be responsible for this patient's medical fees. It would be impossible to obtain the patient's medical fees from them.

The deposit hadn't been much to begin with. The AIDS patient had long since used up all of the deposited money for his medical fees. The deposit hadn't even been sufficient to pay for one checkup. Also, since the AIDS patient had been hospitalized because of a fight, medical insurance wouldn't pay for this.

Since the AIDS patient had left his family's contact information when he was hospitalized, this meant that Zhang Fan would have to contact his family. This would be both about how to deal with the patient's corpse and to ask for the owed medical fees.

This was the ridiculous way that China's medical system currently worked. If someone's patient owed medical fees, the hospital wouldn't take action themselves. The doctor who was in charge of the patient would be held responsible! If a patient owed medical fees, only the doctor could go ask for the fees! That was why Chinese doctors wouldn't dare to treat a patient or prescribe any medicine until the patient paid first! This wasn't the doctors' fault!

There was a certain ridiculous true story! This story was about a small public hospital and its ordinary doctors. This small public hospital had 10 or so doctors, along with a superintendent and three vice superintendents. This hospital's surgery department received an emergency patient who required a certain surgery that the hospital's doctors were incapable of performing. Thus, this hospital had to invite an expert doctor over to perform the surgery.

The patient ended up dying on the day right after the surgery! The patient's family was really angry and demanded compensation. The hospital was forced to pay compensation. At that time, which was 2008, the compensation fee might not have seemed really high, as it was about 300,000 yuan. However, 300,000 yuan would be quite a lot of money back in 2008.

The hospital was forced to pay compensation as the patient's family made too much of a ruckus. After that, the hospital then decided to recoup its losses. Although none of the doctors from this hospital had been the primary surgeon from the surgery, the hospital still made them take responsibility as they had been assistants in the surgery. Not even the anesthesiologist and medical equipment nurse were able to avoid responsibility. It wasn't like this small public hospital had many patients to begin with.

The superintendent commanded that all the doctors and nurses held responsible would have to go demand the money from the expert doctor who had performed the surgery! Otherwise, the doctors and nurses would all have to split the fee amongst themselves! All of these doctors and nurses would need to support themselves. The end result was that they all stopped going to work, and instead went to the expert doctor's department at the big hospital every day to wait for him!

This really was such a heartrending story! Laws and so on wouldn't help ordinary people at all. Unless you were willing to lose your job at the hospital, the superintendent's word was the law!

The ordinary doctors at such a small public hospital wouldn't have much skill. They would still need to rely on the hospital to support them until reaching retirement age! Still, pitiful people would have their own problems. Only having enough skills of your own would be the best for self-preservation. If these ordinary doctors had been skilled enough, they wouldn't have needed to invite an expert doctor over, and if the ordinary doctors had been skilled enough, the superintendent wouldn't have dared to give them so much trouble even if the patient had died after the surgery.

Without any skills, the doctors wouldn't dare to act up! This meant that they would be easily bullied!

Having the doctor urge the patient or the family for medical fees was an internal regulation. No matter how much the medical fees were, it wasn't like the doctor would want to pay it themselves! Zhang Fan called the patient's family, who agreed properly to come over soon, really soon, but the patient's family never arrived even after work was over.

Normally, a dead patient would be brought to the hospital's morgue. However, an AIDS patient's body was basically the equivalent of a biological bomb. His corpse was simply left in his original patient room with the windows open and the heating turned off! The patient's pale and rotting face seemed even scarier under the moonlight's illumination!

The patient's family finally arrived on the afternoon of the second day. Luckily, the weather was still rather cold. If this was summer instead, leaving an infectious disease patient's corpse in a patient room like this would really bring about an unimaginable stench.

Zhang Fan was on night shift duty today, so he wouldn't be able to leave. He was also in charge of contacting the patient's family. Normally, the hospital would notify the Bureau of Civil Affairs and the police station if the patient's family didn't come to claim the body within three days. The government would then order for the patient's body to be cremated. However, nobody would dare to cremate the body until three days were up without the patient's family's permission. It would cause an incident if the patient's family was unreasonable!

The patient's older brother finally arrived with a really displeased expression.

"Take a look at this paperwork. This is your younger brother's death certificate and cause of death. Please sign here. If you have no objections to what's declared, please sign it," Zhang Fan said as he showed the patient's older brother the medical report.

The patient's older brother rapidly signed his name. He had a dark expression and didn't say anything.

"Alright, could you please pay the medical fees? This patient will be directly cremated. You won't be able to take his body home," Zhang Fan told the patient's older brother.

The older brother turned around to leave without saying a single word.

"Hey! Hey! Comrade, what's the matter?" Zhang Fan hurriedly stopped the brother as it was his job to at least try and collect the medical fees.

"I'm already giving face to the police by coming in the first place! I don't care about anything else at all! Do what you like! Go ask whoever caused him to be hospitalized for the medical fees! It has nothing to do with me!"

"Oh!" Zhang Fan really couldn't do anything about this. It seemed that the patient had brought much grief to his family in life. His older brother was angrily gritting his teeth while shouting.

"Alright then. Just sign all the agreement paperwork for the cremation, please."

The patient's older brother immediately left after signing all the necessary paperwork related to the patient's death. The older brother didn't even ask to take a glance at his younger brother's body. Still, there was nothing that a doctor would be able to do about this. This patient's family had actually been someone relatively cooperative, being willing to come sign the paperwork. Some patients' families would immediately hang up and refuse to even have anything to do with their deceased family member.

The patient's death was reported to the department director, who would then report it to the hospital, who would then report it to the Bureau of Health, who would then report it to the government. Before the patient died, nobody would care, but now that the patient was dead, many people would get involved. The hospital wouldn't be able to do what it pleased with the patient's body, especially since this particular patient had an infectious disease.

Chen Feng was still hospitalized as well. Yet, this entire incident was rather messy and ridiculous. In the end, the hospital could only write off the expense of the AIDS patient's medical fees as an unrecoverable expense.

The police station sent a forensic examiner, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention also sent someone to deal with the patient's corpse. The infectious diseases department then began disinfection. This disinfection was complete and incredibly strict. Zhang Fan no longer needed to worry about anything else.

Now that the AIDS patient was gone, the atmosphere in the infectious diseases department lightened significantly. Back when the AIDS patient had still been alive, all of the doctors and nurses had been constantly tense every day. None of them had even chatted about regular gossip. Now, the young nurses became lively again. Their youth would be slowly ground to dust in the dark atmosphere of the infectious diseases department. If they didn't try to at least find some happy things to talk about, it would be truly difficult to imagine how they would be able to last.

Batu recovered quite swiftly and was able to leave the hospital. This was the preciousness of freedom. Even though he was receiving the same treatment when he was free as when he was in jail, there was a huge difference in the treatment's effectiveness.

Batu didn't take any time off to rest after leaving the hospital. Since he had no employment currently, he directly called Zhang Fan. Chen Qifa, Zhang Fan, Shao Hua, and Li Liang invited Batu to a nice meal as a rather belated get-out-of-jail party.

"Superintendent Batu, how about it? Become the superintendent for our hospital," Chen Qifa directly asked before Zhang Fan could even speak. Someone who didn't know the type of person that Chen Qifa was might think that he was being too rude towards the host, Zhang Fan.

However, Zhang Fan understood Chen Qifa far too well. With what Chen Qifa had just directly asked, Batu wouldn't ask for the superintendent position even if he had wanted it. Besides, Batu was highly intelligent and had long since considered things already. Meanwhile, Chen Qifa was worried that Zhang Fan would feel too awkward to ask, which was why he had asked Batu instead.

"Haha, all that superintendent stuff is in the past now. I'm only here to help Zhang Fan. Otherwise, I would have gone to inland China already. I'm getting old! I no longer have ambition like before. Since Zhang Fan has such a high opinion of me, then I'll help him manage things a little. Once everything is on a proper track, I'll then retire." Batu chuckled.

"Superintendent Batu, you see, since you're an expert in hospital management, I won't be reserved with you. I'll be giving you the position of hospital administration director," Zhang Fan told him directly.

"Sure, no problem. I'll act as the bad guy for your hospital for a year. However, your hospital's structure really isn't easy to manage. All of the doctors who have some abilities are stockholders, haha!" Although Batu didn't state it directly, his meaning was quite obvious. He was worried that he wouldn't be able to manage or command the doctors who held stocks in Zhang Fan's hospital!

"That's quite simple! Superintendent Batu! It's been so long since I've received a good scolding from you. After you officially become the hospital administration director, find an opportunity to properly scold me in front of everyone. In fact, I actually miss your scoldings after not hearing them for so long!" Chen Qifa acted as if he was just joking around, but of course Zhang Fan understood just how much thought Chen Qifa had put into this.

"I know, I know! You should include me as well in the scolding!" Li Liang exclaimed.

"Old Chen!" Zhang Fan was almost unable to say anything as he held onto his chopsticks. Who wouldn't want face? This would be even more so for a man like Chen Qifa who had lost so much face for so long by not having a medical license. Now, Chen Qifa had finally managed to gain face, but was going to lose face again for the sake of Zhang Fan's hospital. While others might not understand the bitterness involved in all this, Zhang Fan understood quite well.

"Teacher Zhang, I have to be the one to do this. Otherwise, we won't be able to show off Superintendent Batu's authority."

"Thank you so much, Brother Qifa, Li Liang. Let me toast you both." Shao Hua hurriedly toasted Chen Qifa and Li Liang because she saw how moved Zhang Fan was.

Zhang Fan and Chen Qifa's relationship really was rather ridiculous. Sometimes, it really wouldn't be convenient for Zhang Fan to thank Chen Qifa; otherwise, both would feel awkward. Shao Hua was quite smart to notice this. Chen Qifa and Li Liang happily drank to her toast!

"With such loyal subordinates and such a wonderful wife, it would be so wrong if your hospital doesn't succeed!" Batu exclaimed with sincerity.

Zhang Fan hadn't been drunk for quite a long time already. But this time, he became really drunk. It was no exaggeration that he passed out after a mere three glasses of wine. He immediately collapsed under the table.

Shao Hua and Li Liang supported the unconscious Zhang Fan, while Chen Qifa raised his wineglass and said to Batu, "Superintendent Batu, this is the final glass. Allow me to thank you on behalf of my teacher!"

"You're being too polite. I'm also doing this for the sake of Superintendent Zhang! From now on, we'll be coworkers, so let's start things over! Director Chen, in the future you should be addressing me as Batu or Director Batu. Here, a toast!"

"Alright, Director Batu. Toast!"

They confirmed everyone's relationship to each other in the future quite simply. That was how simply and direct they were as men. They didn't even discuss the specifics of what Batu's salary as hospital administration director would be like. They were simply that casual.