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Former sanatorium turned into haven for hundreds of isolated SARS patients

"We started from scratch. When we moved in, there was only dust here. We had to clean the place first."

Huang Chen-chiang,Chihshan Garden Head

Taipei Chihshan Sanatorium for the Elderly has been home to hundreds of SARS patients and health workers since late April.

The sanatorium, also called Chihshan Garden, was completed early this year. Located on Yangming Mountain's Yangte Boulevard, Chihshan Garden belongs to Taipei City Government's social welfare bureau.

Originally designed to provide housing, care and entertainment for old people, the institution, consisting of several buildings, was converted into an accommodation center for SARS patients and health workers on April 27.

Taipei Municipal Yangming Hospital has been in charge of Chihshan Garden since then. Newly finished, the buildings had virtually no facilities when the hospital moved in to prepare the place for SARS-affected people's isolation.

"We started from scratch. When we moved in, there was only dust here. We had to clean the place first," said Huang Chen-chiang (黃鎮), Yangming Hospital's general secretary, now commander of the institution.

Chihshan Garden has 200 rooms. The rooms allocated for people in isolation are mostly single suites. "Only a small number of people live together. They are family members, such as mothers and children. It is not good to separate them," Huang said.

When the country was gripped by the fear of SARS, Chihshan Garden opened its arms to victims of the disease.

The institution received SARS patients of all ages. "We had a 102-year-old patient, who could not even walk. We also had a baby who was born in Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital when SARS broke out there," Huang said.

The baby and its mother were sent to Chihshan Garden for isolation because it had become too dangerous to stay at Hoping Hospital.

According to Huang, SARS patients were sent to the institution only after hospitals confirmed they have recovered from their illness. They have to stay in the institution for a 14-day quarantine before they are allowed to go home.

The other group of people under quarantine in Chihshan Garden are health workers who handled SARS patients and had contact with SARS cases. They have to be isolated for 10 days.

Tending to the institution brought Huang and his colleagues numerous challenges. "It's never an easy task. You have so many problems to address," Huang said.

Chihshan Garden was dirty when Yangming Hospital began running the place. "At the beginning, we couldn't even get cleaners. Nobody dared come here," Huang said. Later, some volunteers helped clean the buildings.

Then came water and electricity problems. "We had leaks here and there. Sometimes there was no water at all. Our nursing station needed telephone connections, but the telephone company refused to send workers here," said Huang.

The institution finally asked the city government for help. Chihshan Garden now has three technicians to fix its water and electricity problems.

Poor facilities, however, are not the institution's only headache. After Hoping Hospital was sealed off, a man inside the hospital hanged himself because he believed his wife was infected with SARS.

The wife was later sent to Chihshan Garden for isolation. "She had suicidal tendencies. We had to call a psychiatrist from our hospital to treat her," Huang said.

Besides, a lot of people put under quarantine were hurriedly transported to Chihshan Garden. "When they arrived, they did not have any clothes, luggage or money with them. Social workers helped these people by fundraising," Huang said.

To boost the workers' morale, Tyrone Wang (王泰隆), Yangming Hospital's superintendent, visited Chihshan Garden every day to help solve problems.

"We've come a long way," said Huang when asked what the institution has gone through.

But the institution's efforts are not without its rewards. Since its opening, it has received more than 300 people. Now every room has a television and a fan. Around 130 people now stay there. They communicate with their families by mobile phone every day.

Wu Feng-hua (吳逢華), a Hoping Hospital nurse once under quarantine in Chihshan Garden, said she always wanted to leave the place when she was isolated.

After finishing her quarantine, she chose to return to Chihshan Garden to tend to health workers still isolated there.

"It's a nice place, but it needs more people's help," Wu said.
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