Three health workers responsible for keeping Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital running throughout the pandemic share the stories hidden from public view.
Chris Robinson, executive director of innovation and improvement
Covid for me … I could describe it as sort of … the ideal job if you like, because when your job is all about change and improving things, a pandemic makes you have to change more than you could ever imagine.
During Covid we shifted to the rapid expansion of our virtual care services, so we rapidly moved from a (focus on the) bricks and mortar hospital to delivering care beyond the hospital wards – something we’ll take to our other services. My role also oversaw the design and development of our pandemic wards – changing the way we care for patients in a medical and nursing perspective.
The other element for me was the surge planning for the organisation. What happens when we have this many patients in the community? What happens when we get to this point of time in the pandemic? We were having to build flexible models that we were developing and trying and testing all at the same time.
In some ways we were quite fortunate because we got that initial surge of Covid in March of 2020 and that … sort of raised more questions than provided answers. But it did mean that we started to move things towards what would, fast forward to 2021, have us well positioned to respond when we did have huge volumes of Covid patients coming through.
Chris Yang, security supervisor
During the Delta Covid wave, security had a few big tick boxes. The first was setting up and maintaining safe pass for Covid patient transfers, and coordinating with different departments to make sure the process was efficient and disciplined.
The second big tick box was responding to Code Blacks and other emergencies in the high risk areas such as Covid wards; protecting the staff and maintaining safety for patients and visitors. The third was assisting the screening teams during visitation to make sure all the people including staff who come into the hospital came with safe condition of entries.
What I’ve experienced during the pandemic has been extremely difficult and certainly busy for us. My department is running under pressure that comes from different divisions, from families and from the workplace.
My wife is also a frontline worker, we have three little ones, they stay home, homeschooling. So we deal with Covid patients every single shift, we worry about bringing the virus home. We have to be extra careful at the workplace and after work.
Henry Davoodifar, PPE and supply manager
I’ve been in this organisation for 35 years, I’ve been in the warehouse and inventory all my life.
It’s a challenging job but … every day you see different people, you have a different problem, and you deal with it.
When the pandemic started, the first wave, everyone was surprised because we didn’t know how to deal with it. When the second wave came, we were more prepared … but we had problems in my department; staff were seriously ill … and spent a lot of time in hospital. My staff lifted their sleeves up and helped me and everyone in the hospital. I couldn’t have got through without the help of my team.
The warehouse was supplying PPE and clinical goods all around the hospital … At first we concentrated on PPE which was very hard to get. Then when we got those products somehow we had to deliver them all around the hospital. It was challenging because we were in a race with other hospitals to get the products because the usage was high and … the wards needed product. The happy moments were when you get the phone call from the person in charge of the ward who just calls to say thank you, or they come down and give you a box of chocolates … I appreciate that a lot. They see what we’re going through.
