Lu, 99, was a long-time resident at Shanghai's Donghai Elderly Care hospital, her loved ones secure that she was getting round-the-clock care at the city's largest such centre.
That was before COVID-19 struck China's biggest city last month, the country's worst outbreak since the virus emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, infecting multiple patients, doctors and care workers at the 1,800-bed facility.
Among the questions she has about Lu's final days was why elderly patients had to be quarantined separately, away from the care workers most familiar with their conditions under China's quarantine rules. A Donghai staffer who answered the phone on Sunday declined to answer questions, directing Reuters to another department, which did not respond to repeated calls.
A relative of Donghai patient Shen Peiying, who gave his surname as Qiu, said he believes the quarantine policy contributed to the April 3 death of the bedridden 72-year-old. While Chinese state media has shown hospitals with just two or three patients per room, patients like those sent to Shanghai's giant exhibition centres say they live side by side with thousands of strangers, without walls or showers and with ceiling lights on at all hours.
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