When we first heard of the outbreak of COVID-19 back in December 2019, I immediately put my team on high alert. The emergency department is the first zone where patients usually come in for their first clinical screening so we needed to have protocols in place that would allow us to immediately identify any symptoms associated with COVID-19. Working in a hospital setting, we cannot afford any outbreaks of any kind.

The next thing we needed was to set up an internal committee of heads of various departments so we could align with each other on the protocols we needed to work toward. During the early months of the outbreak there were a lot of changes in standard operating procedures (SOPs) that were coming from the health authorities, so this internal committee made sure that we had all the necessary updates and that all working members were aware of the new procedures. We would hold meetings almost everyday, often after working hours, to determine the best operational practices to keep in mind for pandemic management as the pandemic was evolving very rapidly. To be honest, we did this daily for many months until we were assured that our systems were keeping our doctors, patients, and staff members safe.

Simultaneously, along with the operational procedures, we also had to work out our clinical patient management. Understanding the patients’ symptoms, where they had travelled to recently, who they had contact with, played a very important role. But that also meant that we extended our per patient screening time, something that is not ideal during a pandemic. Fortunately, the entire team chipped in, including myself. We were all on ground managing the patients and making sure things run as fast as possible.

Of course there was a lot of nervous energy. Especially in the beginning, when we were not sure about how the transmission was taking place. But as and when we started getting more information, we knew already that simple habits like wearing a mask and following good hygiene can go a long way in keeping you and your loved ones safe.

As a healthcare professional and frontliner, that would be my only request to all members of the public. We are still in the midst of battling this pandemic and it is not the responsibility of the medical fraternity only. We all need to be involved in managing the pandemic and only then we will be able to successfully move on.

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