Huang Chaohui and the staff of the Shanghai First Rehabilitation Hospital were looking forward to coming back home to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Since 2017, Huang assisted the National Medical Team every year. This year he finally had the chance to come back home. It was also a special occasion because his daughter was going to study abroad, and he wanted to say goodbye to her. However, an unexpected epidemic changed everything for him and his beautiful family.

On the New Year’s Eve, Huang Chaohui’s wife Chen Jun received an emergency call from the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission informing her that the second batch of medical teams from Shanghai was ready to go to Hubei. As the chief of the medical department of the Chinese Medicine Hospital of the Yangpu District, she volunteered to go to Wuhan.

Since Huang has been experienced to be far from home, he was worried about his wife because he knows the arduous tasks that this aid mission requires. Despite his worries, he supported his wife’s decision and convinced his daughter to stay home and take care of the four-elderly people in the family. "You don’t need to worry, I’m home and I will take care of everything", said Huang to his wife.

When Chen went to Hubei, Huang realized that there was a lot to do in his house. He and his daughter were struggling with the time spent on the housework. However, he also received a sudden call. Since the head of the medical education department, director of the medical insurance office Liu Ping was called to join the medical team in Wuhan, Huang temporarily took over his colleague’s work. This was for sure a heavy responsibility, and everybody’s trust was placed on him at that critical moment.

The epidemic prevention and control in Shanghai were an enormous duty. The tasks that medical units were in charge of were high demanding and the work done in the medical department is quite important. Huang completed the handover with Director Liu trough video calls in WeChat and worked following the hospital requirements.

Among his duties, Huang worked on the update of the diagnosis and treatment plans, the supervision of the medical work and the communication with the different departments.

"I worked from early and the morning to late at night. When I came back home, I have to take care of my parents. These weeks were physically straining for me", said Huang. But he continued: "To leave home worth the effort, now we are looking forward to a better reunion. Our "small" home is important but taking care of our "big" home is an unavoidable responsibility".

Although he and his wife are living in different places, their hearts are connected. Every day, they support each other through video calls and looking forward to the end of the epidemic to see each other again.