Chapter 553: Terrifying Tales of the Third Hospital: A Second-Rate Hospital’s Struggles

After treatment, the infant who nearly lost their life to a simple plaster patch managed to recover.

Children heal quickly. Once the plaster was removed, the necrotic tissue and pus were cleared out promptly, inflammation was treated, and the wound was kept dry. In just under five days, the child was almost back to normal.

That experience left a deep impression on Zhou Can.

From then on, whenever he encountered infants crying uncontrollably with unclear causes during his medical practice, he took extra care.

There’s always a reason behind a child’s cries.

Sometimes, careless parents miss things—maybe the child swallowed a small piece of metal, or an organ is malfunctioning, or they’ve fallen and suffered a head injury causing internal bleeding. All these require a doctor’s keen attention.

A moment of oversight could mean missing the critical window for treatment.

After finishing his meal, Zhou Can was on his way back to the Emergency Department Operating Room when Jiang Wei sidled up to him.

“Hey, Zhou, got any plans for tonight?”

“What’s up?”

“There’s another private gig. The consultation fee is pretty generous. If the surgery fails, the chief surgeon gets a red envelope of one thousand. If it succeeds, it’s three thousand.”

A consultation fee of three thousand was quite substantial.

Typically, for doctors below the rank of Chief Physician, even those with strong skills, the fee for a private consultation rarely exceeded a thousand.

Getting fifteen hundred was already considered a lavish offer from a generous boss.

But private surgeries came with a significant issue—surgical risk.

If the surgery failed, the consulting doctor often only received travel expenses. Some, too embarrassed to even accept that, walked away empty-handed.

The principle of not accepting payment without results was deeply ingrained in China.

Whether it’s corrupt officials, street hustlers, or others, most still felt uneasy taking money without delivering.

“You seem to take on a lot of private gigs, huh!”

Zhou Can wasn’t short on cash, and his schedule was already packed.

Even if the fee was five thousand, he had no interest in taking this job.

“Gotta find ways to make a living, right? Who doesn’t want a better life?”

Jiang Wei was upfront about it.

She didn’t shy away from admitting her desire to earn more.

“I appreciate that you think of me whenever you get a private job, but I’m really swamped. I don’t think I can make time for this. Why don’t you reach out to another doctor?”

Zhou Can politely declined her offer.

“Where am I supposed to find a better surgeon than you? Come on, just help me out!”

Her voice softened as she pleaded with Zhou Can.

“It’s not that I don’t want to help. I genuinely don’t have the time.”

Zhou Can remained unmoved.

“I know you’re always pulling overtime at Cardiothoracic Surgery. But this morning, you mentioned you’d finally get off early tonight. Just do me this one favor, please? If that patient doesn’t get surgery soon, they won’t make it.”

She was practically begging, stopping just short of grabbing his arm.

Physically, though, she maintained a proper distance, never crossing into inappropriate behavior.

“I casually mentioned that this morning, and by lunchtime, you’ve already lined up a task for me? Sounds like you take on private gigs way more often than I thought!”

A hint of irritation crept into Zhou Can’s tone.

“It’s all about survival, you know? Look, here’s the chat history with my old classmate. During lunch, she asked for my help. She knows I’m working under you and that your surgical skills are top-notch, so she begged me to ask you.”

She showed Zhou Can the chat logs.

Sure enough, it was a recent conversation with her classmate.

The other party also mentioned that the patient’s condition was critical, and the surgery was quite complex. Their hospital lacked the capability, so they had to seek help from external experts.

Within the city, there were fewer than ten experts who could perform this surgery. Most either didn’t take private gigs or were unavailable.

Jiang Wei’s old classmate couldn’t find a suitable doctor, which is why she turned to her for help.

“Have your classmate send over the patient’s details. If it’s within my ability, I’ll take this case. But let’s be clear—don’t come to me for private gigs again. I don’t do them.”

In the end, Zhou Can couldn’t help but feel compassion for the patient.

Patients with complications after surgery were often turned away by most hospitals.

Cleaning up someone else’s mess rarely paid off. If you did well, there was little reward. If you messed up, you’d be dragged down too.

So, few were willing to take on patients with failed surgeries.

Usually, the initial hospital had to see it through to the end.

If you had connections with a major hospital’s leadership or a chief physician, you might get assistance with a quick call.

“Thanks, boss! Yes, finally!”

Jiang Wei beamed with excitement.

Right in front of Zhou Can, she sent a voice message to her classmate.

When the other party heard Zhou Can had agreed, they were thrilled and quickly sent over the patient’s information.

“Boss, I’ve forwarded it to you via WeChat.”

Jiang Wei waved her phone.

Zhou Can glanced at the patient’s basic info. The patient, a 33-year-old male, had suffered severe vomiting after heavy drinking, followed by chest pain and breathing difficulties. He was rushed by ambulance to the nearest First Hospital for treatment.

After examination, the First Hospital found the patient’s right lung had no respiratory sounds, and a chest X-ray revealed a hydropneumothorax on the right side.

This was a clear case of spontaneous esophageal rupture.

The hospital promptly arranged emergency surgery to repair the esophageal tear.

During the procedure, they discovered a 6cm tear in the esophagus.

The chief surgeon sutured the mucosal and muscular layers, then closed the pleura. The surgery went smoothly with no complications.

However, on the fifth day post-surgery, the patient’s temperature spiked above 39 degrees Celsius. The fluid draining from the chest cavity increased and turned turbid.

After a joint consultation, the doctors at the First Hospital strongly suspected an esophageal fistula.

They administered methylene blue orally to the patient and soon observed blue fluid draining from the chest, confirming the diagnosis of an esophageal fistula.

Esophageal repair surgeries, especially with large tears, were highly prone to postoperative fistulas.

It wasn’t necessarily due to the surgeon’s skill level.

The First Hospital was one of the city’s veteran hospitals, with considerable strength. In its heyday, it held a status in the province akin to today’s Tuyu Hospital or Provincial People’s Hospital, a true heavyweight.

It expanded ambitiously, growing from the First Hospital to the Sixth Hospital.

Now, the Second and Sixth Hospitals had vanished into the tides of time. Only the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Hospitals remained.

The strongest among them was the Fifth Hospital.

Like Tuyu Hospital and Xinxiang Maternity and Child Hospital, it had undergone bold reforms in the last wave of development, significantly boosting its capabilities.

In contrast, the First, Third, and Fourth Hospitals suffered from rigid systems and stagnant internal management.

Their leadership lacked vision, focusing only on personal gains, stuffing the hospitals with relatives for cushy jobs. Eventually, no one even knew how many ghost employees were on the payroll.

Clinical medical talent was utterly neglected.

This was a common ailment among outdated institutions.

With too many connected individuals and leaders, the actual workers dwindled. Those idle leaders, to assert authority or rake in more benefits, tightly controlled the clinical staff.

They practically treated them like personal servants.

Hospitals of this type shared distinct traits: logistics, administrative, and idle staff far outnumbered clinical personnel. A single doctor might be supporting two non-medical staff.

And those staff often lorded over the doctors.

Any hint of disobedience led to suppression, petty punishments, or outright sabotage.

Needless to say, in such toxic environments, any competent doctor or nurse fled as far as they could, often resigning or jumping ship.

Those who stayed were typically slick, excelling at flattery and brown-nosing.

Such people spent most of their energy pleasing superiors and networking, rarely honing their professional skills.

If these old-timers were just a small fraction of the clinical department, it might not be a big deal.

But when an entire department was filled with them, the problem became severe.

Talented newcomers were immediately targeted, beaten down by the clique. They either assimilated or got pushed out. Incompetent newcomers who learned to flatter could stay.

Thus, the hospital was essentially doomed.

Rumor had it that when the Second and Sixth Hospitals collapsed, the authorities tried to reassign their staff to other hospitals. But ambitious institutions like Tuyu Hospital, Provincial People’s Hospital, and Provincial Children’s Hospital did everything to keep them out.

They even created blacklists for hiring, closely guarded by hospital directors.

The staff from those two hospitals were essentially blacklisted for life.

At least within the province, their careers were over.

Any decent hospital, without exception, shut its doors to them.

Later, a thought-provoking yet amusing incident occurred.

After the Second Hospital shut down, its doctors and nurses, who had close ties with a private hospital, managed to swarm into it en masse.

The private hospital’s director thought recruiting so many clinical staff at once was a golden opportunity to make a big splash.

But in just nine months, that private hospital was brought to its knees by those entrenched old-timers.

On the day it went bankrupt, the director reportedly sat in his office, sobbing uncontrollably. A family legacy spanning generations was destroyed under his watch.

After that fiasco, the staff from the Second and Sixth Hospitals were permanently blacklisted.

No hospital dared to take them in.

Even those who had managed to sneak into other hospitals through connections were eventually purged.

A person’s reputation is like a tree’s shadow.

Those two hospitals became infamous, and everyone feared following in the footsteps of that private hospital.

A single bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.

Even today, staff from the First to Fifth Hospitals still face discrimination.

The Fifth Hospital rose to prominence because its previous director was relentless, pushing through a brutal talent reform that cut deep into the hospital’s core. Rumor has it, at the worst times, at least three groups of staff protested daily.

Under immense pressure, after over a decade of grueling effort, the Fifth Hospital finally underwent a complete talent overhaul.

Its image was transformed, bursting with renewed vitality.

Later, that director, at just forty-eight, was diagnosed with three types of cancer—lung, liver, and intestinal. Having so many cancers at once was terrifying.

It showed just how much effort and unimaginable stress that young director endured to save the Fifth Hospital.

His successor was a remarkably young woman.

Rumor has it she studied abroad for seven years and brought back extensive experience in hospital management from overseas. Under her leadership, the Fifth Hospital continued deep reforms and implemented many new development strategies.

Its progress over the past three years has outpaced even Tuyu Hospital’s.

Some call it a dark horse, believing that at this rate, within a decade, it could join the ranks of the province’s top-tier hospitals.

The First Hospital, with its deep roots and strong ties to the authorities, also held undeniable strength.

Word on the street was that working there made it easiest to secure a permanent position.

The benefits and待遇 were famously good.

At Tuyu Hospital, a nurse getting one day off a week was considered lucky. In reality, night shifts were the norm for clinical nurses.

But at the First Hospital, nurses worked two days and got one off.

Night shift rotations came at most once a week.

On top of that, the high chance of securing a permanent position was a huge draw. Even with equal pay policies, the benefits for contract workers versus permanent staff were worlds apart.

And retirement pensions? That gap was heartbreaking.

Contract workers’ pensions, based on insurance, were usually just two or three thousand a month. Permanent staff received no less than eighty percent of their pre-retirement salary.

That alone made many willing to forgo big ambitions just to hold onto a permanent position.

No grand wealth or glory, just stability!

Thanks to this massive advantage, the First Hospital still had plenty of seasoned experts.

Among them were some truly skilled doctors.

After reviewing the data on the patient with the postoperative esophageal fistula, Zhou Can began to seriously ponder the real cause of the complication.

First, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that the surgeon’s skill was lacking, leading to the postoperative issue.

Second, considering it was a spontaneous esophageal tear—and a long one at that—it suggested the esophagus’s toughness was inherently poor.

Of course, the esophagus isn’t exactly known for being tough.

But it does have good elasticity.

The esophageal muscle layer consists of an inner circular and outer longitudinal layer, about two millimeters thick, with elastic fibers sandwiched between. The upper esophagus is striated muscle, lacking longitudinal fibers at the back. At both ends, the circular muscles are more developed, resembling sphincters.

Theoretically, it can handle food three times its diameter without issue.

And that’s far from its limit.

Under normal circumstances, bursting an esophagus from eating is nearly impossible.