BAZHOU, China : Yao Ruyan paced frantically in the industrial Hebei province of China, 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Beijing, in front of the county hospital's fever clinic. All of the nearby hospitals were full, despite the fact that her mother-in-law had COVID and required urgent medical attention.

She yelled into her phone, "They say there are no beds here."

Southwest of Beijing, in small towns and cities, emergency wards are overburdened as China struggles with its first-ever nationwide COVID wave. Patients are slumped on benches in hospital hallways and lying on floors due to a lack of beds, and intensive care units are turning away ambulances and searching for available beds for sick people's relatives.

But the hospital couldn`t handle COVID cases, Yao was told. She was told to go to larger hospitals in adjacent counties. Zhuozhou Hospital, an hour`s drive from Yao`s hometown, was the latest disappointment. Yet again, she was told the hospital was full, and that she would have to wait.

“I`m furious,” Yao said, tearing up, as she clutched the lung scans from the local hospital. Over two days, some journalists visited five hospitals and two crematoriums in towns and small cities in Baoding and Langfang prefectures, in central Hebei province. The area was the epicentre of one of China`s first outbreaks after the state loosened COVID controls in November and December. In recent days, headlines in state media said the area is “ starting to resume a normal life.”

But life in central Hebei`s emergency wards and crematoriums is anything but normal. Even as the young go back to work and lines at fever clinics shrink, many of Hebei`s elderly are falling into critical condition. On Tuesday, a Chinese health official said that China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 death toll, a narrow definition that excludes many deaths that would be attributed to COVID in other places.

At Baoding No. 2 Hospital, in Zhuozhou, Wednesday, patients thronged the hallway of the emergency ward. A medical worker shouted at relatives wheeling in a patient from an arriving ambulance. “There`s no oxygen or electricity in this corridor!” the worker exclaimed. “If you can`t even give him oxygen, how can you save him?” The relatives left, hoisting the patient back into the ambulance. On one highway toward Beijing, two ambulances followed each other, lights flashing, as a third passed by heading in the opposite direction.

A funeral shop worker estimated it is burning 20 to 30 bodies a day, up from three to four before COVID measures were loosened. “There have been so many people dying,” said Zhao Yongsheng, a worker at a funeral goods shop near a local hospital. At a crematorium in Gaobeidian, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Zhuozhou, the body of one 82-year-old woman was brought from Beijing, a two-hour drive, because funeral homes in China`s capital were packed, according to the woman`s grandson, Liang.

“They said we`d have to wait for 10 days,” Liang said, giving only his surname because of the sensitivity of the situation. Liang`s grandmother had been unvaccinated, Liang added when she came down with coronavirus symptoms and had spent her final days hooked to a respirator in a Beijing ICU. “There`s been a lot!” a worker said when asked about the number of COVID deaths before funeral director Ma Xiaowei stepped in and brought the journalists to meet a local government official. As the official listened in, Ma confirmed there were more cremations, but said he didn`t know if COVID was involved.

“There`s no so-called explosion in cases, it`s all under control,” said Wang Ping, the administrative manager of Gaobeidian Hospital, speaking by the hospital`s main gate. Wang said only a sixth of the hospital`s 600 beds were occupied but refused to allow AP journalists to enter. Two ambulances came to the hospital during the half-hour, and a patient`s relative told the media they were turned away from Gaobeidian`s emergency ward because it was full.

Thirty kilometers (19 miles) south in the town of Baigou, emergency ward doctor Sun Yana was candid, even as local officials listened in. “There are more people with fevers, the number of patients has indeed increased,” Sun said. But they added that serious cases are being directed to hospitals in bigger cities, because of limited medical equipment. The lack of ICU capacity in Baigou, which has about 60,000 residents, reflects a nationwide problem. Some counties lack a single ICU bed.

The guard asked a patient to move but backed off when a relative snarled at him. “Grandpa!” a woman cried, crouching over the patient. As white plastic tubes were fitted onto his face, the man began to breathe more easily. Relatives surrounding another bed began tearing up as an elderly woman`s vitals flatlined. A man tugged a cloth over the woman`s face, and they stood, silently, before her body was wheeled away.

“Everyone in my family has got COVID,” one man asked at the counter, as four others clamoured for attention behind him. In a corridor, a man paced as he shouted into his cell phone. Some had only mild symptoms, illustrating another issue, experts say: People in China rely more heavily on hospitals than in other countries, meaning it`s easier for emergency medical resources to be overloaded. Over two hours, AP journalists witnessed half a dozen or more ambulances pull up to the hospital`s ICU and load critical patients to sprint to other hospitals, even as cars pulled up with dozens of new patients. A beige van pulled up to the ICU and honked frantically at a waiting ambulance. Five people hoisted a man bundled in blankets out of the back of the van and rushed him into the hospital.

In a hallway, half a dozen patients wheezed on metal benches as oxygen tanks pumped air into their noses. Outside a CT scan room, a woman sitting on a bench wheezed as snot dribbled out of her nostrils into crumpled tissues. A man sprawled out on a stretcher outside the emergency ward as medical workers stuck electrodes to his chest. By a check-in counter, a woman sitting on a stool gasped for air as a young man held her hand.