Chapter 352 - 250: Get the Train Station Running (Second Update)
Through arc smelting, the recovered scrap metal was transformed into new metal materials. These were then processed into the necessary parts using a mechanical arm, and Chen Xin finally completed the modification of several heaters inside the tent.
While Chen Xin was conducting arc smelting, workers from Lin City delivered the promised cold-resistant felt, which allowed Chen Xin to upgrade the material of the medical tent.
Although it was a bit of a hassle, completing the medical tent’s modification given the lack of materials made Chen Xin quite satisfied.
After finishing everything, Chen Xin found the captain and informed him that the new medical tent was ready for use.
"Is it ready to use? That’s great news, now we can accommodate more patients." The captain was very pleased and promptly arranged for the rescue team doctors to transfer new patients into the newly modified medical tent.
The workers from Lin City felt very excited about this development too. For Lin City now, other aspects were still manageable, and the city government was striving to improve the situation, actively engaging in post-disaster reconstruction.
Yet on the medical front, the stress from the overwhelming number of patients directly collapsed the medical system in Lin City. Although the arrival of the rescue team brought a slight improvement to the situation, the impact they could make across Lin City was still minuscule.
Having additional beds to accommodate more patients is undoubtedly good news.
While it remains limited in effect, only a small portion of severely ill patients can be admitted to rooms for treatment, but this still represents a precious glimmer of hope for Lin City.
As he watched the captain organize the transfer of new patients to the wards, Chen Xin did not disturb his work but instead pulled aside a worker to ask, "What is the biggest difficulty facing Lin City’s post-disaster reconstruction now?"
Although modifying medical tents and assisting the rescue team in treating patients is crucial, Chen Xin is not a doctor and such work is not his expertise, so he feels he ought to exert himself in areas more suitable for him.
The area where Chen Xin could undoubtedly exert more power is assisting with upgrading and transforming urgently needed resources to address Lin City’s current challenges.
"The lack of medical capacity is our primary issue; besides that, there’s the train station." The worker was unaware of Chen Xin’s purpose but responded with the main issues Lin City faced presently: "You’ve seen the medical problems—too many patients and severely insufficient medical staff, leading to many local patients not receiving effective treatment. Your arrival solved part of the issue, but many people still can’t receive timely and effective treatment.
The train station, on the other hand, is completely buried by snow; even if trains could bring resources in, effectively loading and unloading them is very challenging. This has created significant difficulties for obtaining resources, and even if the warehouse at the station, buried alongside it, has goods unloaded, there’s nowhere appropriate to store them. It’s quite troublesome."
"Haven’t you tried to dig out the train station?" Chen Xin wondered. Knowing what the problem is, why not organize manpower to clear the snow from the station and uncover the train station?
"We’d like to! But the issue is most people are unwell now; we can barely gather people to unload goods, let alone clear snow from the train station!" The worker said with a bitter smile.
Of course, they’d want to clear the platform to let trains enter for unloading, but the problem is they genuinely lack manpower for clearing the train station.
The previous blizzard severely impacted the city, leaving many survivors sick due to the cold, while those who remained healthy were redeployed by the government to maintain supplies, venturing into the railways under storm conditions to load and unload train freight.
This struggle endured for a full month, consuming significant live resources in Lin City—after all, amidst minus seventy degrees conditions, braving wind and snow to transport goods risked frostbite, colds, or even death occurring with high likelihood.
Now although the blizzard has passed, there are very few healthy survivors left in Lin City who haven’t fallen ill.
This scenario resembles that of "Frostpunk," dealing with blizzards; unless cold resistance and heating technologies are maxed out, a blizzard certainly results in an overwhelming number of patients, some of whom will even be doctors ill themselves, mostly tending toward critical condition.
In such times, the limited able workers are naturally dispatched to maintain the city’s resource acquisition, meanwhile letting the medical system operate as fully as possible to restore the sick.
In these conditions, wasting resources to upgrade houses is meaningless, since the blizzard has passed, and the houses’ insulation remains at an acceptable level.
Reality is not a game; in games engineers can both research and act as doctors, immediately constructing hospitals with resources, but in reality, that’s impossible.
A professional medical practitioner requires five years of medical study in university, and those skilled and seasoned need substantial time accumulating clinical experience, making each caregiver incredibly precious.
This is why during disasters and epidemics in Flame Country, medical staff from across the nation were mobilized to support affected areas; indeed, facing suddenly soaring patient numbers can genuinely collapse the medical system.
And the result of a medical system collapse would be an absolute tragedy and disaster.
Currently, Lin City’s medical system has indeed crumbled; though the rescue team aided recovery from the collapse, it has not drastically altered the situation realistically.
Ultimately, this is the rescue team’s utmost capability; unless Chen Xin could upgrade the medical station’s equipment into the medical pods present in sci-fi works, the situation won’t improve drastically.
After all, even receiving treatment, patient recovery requires time, and without sci-fi-like pods where one sleeps inside and emerges healed, Lin City’s predicament won’t easily change significantly.
Even if Chen Xin used survival points to modify medical pods, under present conditions of resource scarcity, he couldn’t produce anything—not relying solely on his partial electromagnetic furnace to recycle scrap iron for resource gathering?
Therefore, to improve Lin City’s condition, Chen Xin believes excavating the train station from the snow and ensuring resources and external support can smoothly enter Lin City is the priority task at hand.