About 25,000 FIFA Club World Cup spectators screened for COVID-19, says PHCC
THE Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) team, under the guidance of its Managing Director Dr Mariam Ali Abdul Malik, successful screened around 25,000 spectators of the recently held FIFA Club World Cup at Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC), the corporation has said.
PHCC was tasked with screening the spectators to minimise the risk of COVID-19 spread, taking into consideration the latest public health measures, including risk assessment, social distancing, specific hygiene regimes and resource planning.
PHCC, in partnership with Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), supported Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) in hosting the tournament asper the new sports protocols, which were suited to the world’s COVID-19 current phase.
PHCC played a major role by managing all the related activities for conducting COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Testing for the spectators within 72 hours before each match.
As per the health regulations and protocols in Qatar, the stadia spectator’s capacity allowed for the FIFA Club World Cup was 25 percent for each game, including the final.
PHCC Project Director Dr Yasmin Ali said, “I am grateful to be entrusted to lead the Project PHCC’s Planning and Management of screening spectators for FIFA Club World Cup Qatar 2020. Since we had been through the learning curve for the HH Amir Cup Finals, we continued to enhance the robust system we built, its processes, workflows etc to fit the purpose.
“We have set up our Project Core Team – Corporate Project Management Office (CPMO) together with Emergency and Disaster Preparedness (EDP) in collaboration with operations and other internal and external stakeholders.”
Dr. Yasmine added, “As we got involved in planning and management of testing for HH Amir Cup Final, AFC Finals 2020 and FIFA Club World Cup 2020, we can see a striking similarity between projects and portfolio management and football game. We carefully and strategically planned, every move in detail beforehand and every risk and unforeseen situation anticipated and ensured it was mitigated. Each team member roles and responsibilities were defined both for planning and operations. Timely communication and constant reviewing of the processes during the implementation was very important for work success.”
“We sometimes needed contingency plans, more than one plan, when something did not go as anticipated. The project team, Medical Operations Team and other supporting team (IPAC, OHS, IT) all were very adaptive and flexible in the response to agile nature of this project and changing some of these plans,” Dr Yasmine said. “I would sincerely express my heartfelt gratitude to our MD, Dr Mariam Ali Abdulmalik for her supervision and support for all and continuous guidance for the mission to succeed.”
She added, “Overall, this has been a very collaborative and crosssectoral effort between PHCC, MoPH, HMC and SC to protect the health of the community of Qatar for those who had attended this sporting event following unprecedented health measures.
“We owe a huge credit to different services and sectors who worked so hard to ensure how safe our activities and facilities are, to achieve our primal goal, which was the safety of spectators and everyone involved, all under the guidance of Dr Abdulwahab Al Musleh, senior advisor to Minister of Public Health for Sports and Emergency Affairs.”