Shanghai Renji Hospital held a ceremony to welcome the return of its 28 doctors and nurses who were dispatched to the designated hospital in Shanghai to treat COVID-19 cases on Saturday.

The Renji team was the last to leave the designated hospital, Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, out of the five medical contingents sent from hospitals in Shanghai. Medical workers from the center will take over, treating imported cases in severe and critical conditions.

Shanghai reported a total of 318 imported cases of COVID-19 by the end of Friday. Among them 291 had recovered and been discharged from hospital, and the remaining 27, including two critically ill cases, were still receiving treatment according to the municipal health commission.

The team from Renji Hospital Affiliated with Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine worked for 83 days, the longest of all medical contingents dispatched for support at the designated hospital.

Consisting of 10 doctors and 18 nurses from departments spanning critical care medicine, anesthesiology, respiration, infectious diseases and emergency treatment to cardiovascular surgery, liver surgery and rheumatology, the team treated eight cases in severe or critical condition and five eventually recovered and were discharged.

Gao Yuan, director of critical care medicine of Renji Hospital, led treatment of all eight severe and critical cases. He received the "Shanghai Jiaotong University Principal Award" at the ceremony for his outstanding contributions to the epidemic fight.

Gao recalled a case of a 65-year-old local Shanghai patient, who was hospitalized for treatment lasting 73 days, including 40 days with ECMO support. The patient, surnamed Chen, and his family had sent the doctors videos of him at home in good condition multiple times after he was discharged on April 15.

"But when we chatted about Chen's case, we still felt his recovery was a medical miracle with our dedicated team work. He suffered from almost all the complications in and out of medical textbooks," Gao said.

The team gave souvenirs, including a poster and a team flag with their signatures, as gifts to the hospital in return. They will be kept at the archive of the hospital.