Exemplary: How Latifa Hospital rose to the Covid challenge

It was really a Dubai thing. Private sector pitched in and joined hands with government hospitals, says Dr Muna Tahlak, CEO

When Covid-19 hit, all hospitals across Dubai, both government and private, rose to the occasion and fought the pandemic successfully to bring the situation under control in the emirate. However, Latifa Hospital in Dubai has a special story about its battle against coronavirus.

In an exclusive interview, CEO Dr Muna Tahlak shared the story of how the hospital for women and children created history by successfully treating pregnant women, new mothers, newborns, other children and even male patients right from the UAE’s first cases of Covid-19.

Being an exclusive health care facility for women and children, 70 per cent of patients who visit Latifa Hospital are considered high risk with complicated pregnancies, extreme premature deliveries, children with complications, all requiring speciality care.

When Covid hit initially, more men were presenting with the infection than women and children in the first wave. However, Dr Muna revealed that her hospital had to deal with Covid-19 when the first cases were reported in the UAE.

Dealing with first cases

There were no proper guidelines or treatment protocols for Covid-19 in place at that time. However, Dr Muna said, the infection control team at Rashid Hospital stepped in and coordinated with Latifa Hospital to manage the cases.

“Staff were not even sure how many times they should change the PPE. There was a lot of anxiety as new things kept coming,” Dr Muna recollected.

In the first wave of the pandemic, when there were a lot of men contracting the infection, many needed hospital admission.

“For the first time in the history of Latifa Hospital, we started taking men because they needed beds and we had the beds as initially not many women and kids were infected. So we admitted men and took care of them,” said Dr Muna.

“I have an amazing team who was willing to do whatever was needed to take care of patients,” she disclosed.

Emptying a significant number of beds, especially during the first wave, was an important task to give beds to Covid-19 patients, she said.

Delving into the management of the crisis, Dr Muna said the hospital had to “convert rooms into negative pressure, making it suitable even for the patients. We had to decide emptying wards, blocking some clinics, stopping some elective cases.”

Private sector participation

“It was really a Dubai thing. The private sector pitched in and joined hands with government hospitals. We could send patients [pregnant women, new mothers and babies] to other facilities where they could be taken care of so we could concentrate on taking care of Covid patients.”

When everyone united in the battle, Dr Muna was not only overseeing Latifa Hospital. She was also involved in treatment and capacity planning at Dubai level, being a team member guiding the emirate’s newly formed Command and Control Centre for Covid-19. “I was able to see what was happening across the city.

So all the efforts in planning and making sure that resources were there for whoever needed it, were exceptional, and I must say that Dubai proved to be one of the places that took good care of the people during the pandemic.”

Staff were not even sure how many times they should change the PPE. There was a lot of anxiety as new things kept coming.”

Dr Muna Tahlak | CEO, Latifa Hospital