Public helped in COVID-19 battle: doctor
Seventh in a series profiling front-line workers of the pandemic.
The people deserve a lot of credit.
At least that is how Dr. Steven Combden, the chief of emergency medicine at the Central Newfoundland Regional Health Centre in Grand Falls-windsor, sees things when it comes to the suppression of the coronavirus in the province.
Entering into Friday, the province had just one new case of COVID-19 — the disease caused by the coronavirus — in the last 21 days, and the number of active cases sits at two, with one in hospital.
“A pat on the back to the public,” said Combden. “We can do what we want in the hospitals, in the administration and in the emergency rooms to try and plan to get ready for this stuff, but a huge role is actually with the public and trying to mitigate the spread of the virus.
“No matter what, there is only so much capacity. Everyone has only so much capacity and if the public was not doing the fantastic job they were doing, we could easily run out of room.”
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials in Newfoundland and Labrador laid out a plan aimed at keeping number of infections low and getting through the pandemic safely.
Part of that was to prepare for the worst possible scenario that the province could see and work from there.
In Grand Falls-windsor, that mindset meant putting plexiglass in the emergency area and dividing the room into two areas. One of those areas is designated for people who come in with coughs or colds, while patients without such symptoms are put in a separate waiting room.
The administration helped open up room for possible cases and broke its intensive care unit into COVID-19 and NON-COVID-19 distinctions.
“There were a lot of changes in the building to prepare for this surge and to have the capacity available to deal with it,” said Combden.
In the last 2 1/2 months, there has been plenty of talk about personal protective equipment (PPE) and making sure there is enough of it available.
As countries struggled with the coronavirus, there was a shortage of PPE for a time.
“Hats off to the administration at Central Health because that has never, ever been evident on the job,” Combden said of ensuring there was adequate PPE for frontline workers. “Whenever we wanted something we went to our cabinets and it was there.
“We’ve never had to change what we do because of a fear of a lack of PPE or simply not having PPE.”
The province is starting to open up and people are starting to return to emergency rooms for non-covid19-related medical issues.
If those numbers go up or stay the same, Combden said, people shouldn’t feel as if they can’t go to the emergency room.
He offered the same advice for people who may think twice about visiting the Killick Health Services clinic in Grand Falls-windsor.
“No one should be afraid of going to the emergency room,” said Combden.