Chapter 360: Chapter 360 How Much Time Do You Need Chapter 360: Chapter 360 How Much Time Do You Need “No anesthesia?” Everyone was shocked. An emergency cesarean section without anesthesia, the mother simply couldn’t withstand the pain.
They were doctors, not executioners; they couldn’t just watch a living person die of pain.
They were now caught in a dilemma: without surgery, the mother and the baby would die; with surgery, the mother would likely not survive the pain either, with the baby dying in utero.
Was there even any point in performing the surgery?
Most importantly, in the eyes of the villagers, they held great respect for them. If they failed to save lives, it could easily lead to misunderstandings and anger among the villagers, which would be detrimental to the unity Jianshe sought to foster.
Especially at such times, all the health workers fell silent.
There were few health workers here that could truly be called doctors, many were nurses by training, and those who could actually perform surgery were very few and far between.
So it wasn’t that Doctor Wei really didn’t want to perform the surgery, it was that no one could bring themselves to make the first cut.
The man, seeing the female doctors had gone silent, didn’t understand what anesthesia was, but he was worried. No one was going to save his wife, his wife would die, and his child would be gone, yet these doctors were silent and unmoved.
In his desperation, he pleaded earnestly. At that moment, the tall man wished he could kneel again, if only his wife and child could be saved. In the village, childbirth was always attended by a midwife, and every year, one or two women died in childbirth at the gates of the underworld. He didn’t want his wife to end up the same way.
“Doctor, doctor, we don’t need the anesthesia anymore, can’t we just not use it? Please, I beg you, save my wife, save my child!”
In his urgency, the local dialect slipped out of the man’s mouth. Many of the villagers here were from ethnic minorities, so there were various languages, most of which they couldn’t understand.
Doctor Wei said with difficulty, “The responsibility is too great. Everyone knows the pain of a cesarean section is unbearable for most people, and it could really result in death. Maybe we still couldn’t save the child or the mother. I can’t make the incision.” Just thinking about the situation made Doctor Wei retreat. Performing surgery on a patient without anesthesia was not something she could do—she was no ancient Hua Tuo, and this mother was definitely not Guan Yu, Guan Yunchang.
Those were historical legends, and she, for one, couldn’t achieve that, nor did she expect an ordinary woman to do so. Healing the sick and saving lives also depended on their own abilities. At this moment, it wasn’t about medical skills; it was the harsh reality.
“If I could use acupuncture to temporarily relieve the mother’s pain, could you operate?” Bai Xiao finally spoke up. These were two lives at stake, especially here with the low medical conditions. If they didn’t intervene, the mother and child were basically as good as dead. Don’t even think about other hospitals; there wasn’t even a proper village doctor here, let alone anything else.
Doctor Wei incredulously said, “How could you possibly do that? If the pain relief wears off in the middle of the surgery, that’s a very difficult risk to predict. You need to think this through!” It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bai Xiao; Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture for pain relief did have precedent, but those were matters of minutes. A cesarean section required far more than just a few minutes; there were wounds to stitch up, and not just a single layer. Any mishandling could bring unexpected complications and life-threatening risks to the mother.
Bai Xiao nodded firmly, “I can assure you, as long as you need for the surgery, that’s how long I can hold on.” Although this time the special ability she’d need to use would be much more than usual, lives were at stake.
“All right, let’s go report to the leadership immediately,” Doctor Wei made a decisive call, as each extra minute delayed increased the danger for the mother.