Quake wounded won't have to pay hospital bills

137 are being hospitalized for injuries sustained after magnitude 6.0 temblor

Zhao Yulin lay in bed quietly in the First People's Hospital of Yibin, Sichuan province, at noon on Thursday.

The 93-year-old farmer from Xunchang town in Gongxian county, Yibin, became excited when a visitor approached him, asking about what happened to him during the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that struck on Monday evening in Changning, another county under the administration of Yibin.

"When the earthquake struck, I couldn't run quickly. I fell and fractured my right leg. I was poor and worried about my medical bill. But the hospital has treated me without asking for money," Zhao said.

According to Wang Xianqing, an official in charge of publicity at the Yibin's health commission, all the hospitals treating those injured in the quake will exempt them from medical fees, although it has yet to be decided which government department will foot the bill.

Zhao was one of eight quake survivors being cared for in the First People's Hospital of Yibin.

The quake killed 13 people and wounded 226. Of the wounded, 137 have been hospitalized.

"Most of the 137 wounded people are in county hospitals in Changning and Gongxian. People with more complicated conditions have been sent to hospitals in Yibin," said Luo Qiang, deputy director of the Yibin's health commission.

Soon after the quake, medical workers from the First People's Hospital - led by its director, Xie Mingjun - rushed to the county hospital in Gongxian on Tuesday where, at 3 am, Xie found Hu Yuqing, a 50-year-old farmer.

"She suffered from fractures of the thoracic spine, lumbar spine, rib and femur, as well as a pulmonary contusion. As she was in a critical condition, we took her to our hospital," Xie said.

From 1:15 am to 6:30 am on Thursday, medical experts dispatched by the National Health Commission from Chengdu in Sichuan province and Beijing operated on her.

"The operation proved a success and she is in an intensive care unit in our hospital," Xie said.

All the injured in his hospital except Hu have arranged to be in wards of the geriatric department on the third floor so that the medical experts can visit them and offer medical guidance.

Massaging the lower part of her 53-year-old husband's left leg in a ward several steps away from Zhao's ward, Peng Ying, 48, said the hospital did not charge the injured and offered free food for them and their caretakers.

Her husband, Xie Xinghong, was sleeping when the quake struck. He fell from his bed and fractured the upper part of his left leg.