Healthcare management during COVID‑19 : insights from an acute hospital : lessons learned from the pandemic

Abstract

On 31st December 2019, Chinese Health Officials reported a cluster of 41 patients with a novel pneumonia (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 2020). Six days later, the country’s scientists had already determined its cause to be a new type of coronavirus which the World Health Organisation officially named SARS‑CoV‑2 and the disease as “COVID‑19". On March 7th, 2020, Malta reported the first case of COVID‑19 in an Italian girl returning to Malta. Three days later, the government announced a travel suspension with Italy and quarantine for all returning travellers (Times of Malta, 2020). As of 7th November 2021, COVID‑19 had killed more than 5 million people around the world, with more than 248 million confirmed cases across 213 different countries (WHO, 2021). An eventful two years brought many changes in almost every aspect of our lives, from the ways we interact, work, and socialise. COVID‑19 has 'spread like wildfire' and presented unprecedented challenges to every single industry around the world especially healthcare (Kumar et al., 2020).