- Dr Mumtaz Abbas, family physician at the Bishop Lavis Community Health Centre, said she is proud of healthcare workers in the Western Cape.
- Some of her toughest moments came at the peak of the second wave, which hit much harder than the first.
- It's been exactly one year since the first case of Covid-19 was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 5 March 2020.
Much has changed in the year since President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in South Africa.
And the changes came thick and fast, especially for healthcare workers.
"We've come such a long way," Dr Mumtaz Abbas, family physician and managing doctor at the Bishop Lavis Community Health Centre in Cape Town, told News24 as she reflected on the year that was.
"We went from seeing one Covid-19 [suspected case] in the courtyard using our normal trauma unit to, within a few hours, setting up a complete Covid-19 emergency and testing unit... which is still standing today."
Abbas praised the Western Cape Health Department and her fellow healthcare workers for being "flexible" and "responsive" to change.
"We were so innovative in the way we did things. Things happened very fast and we managed to get through two waves of the pandemic with great teamwork. We were really resilient," she said.
Innovative thinking
The clinic had to make smart adaptations, like reducing the number of patients entering the facility in order to limit the spread of the virus in the community.
"Another important, innovative thing that we've also done during Covid is the home delivery of our chronic meds," Abbas said.
Many of the patients on chronic medications are at high risk of contracting more severe symptoms of Covid-19 and so community-based workers deliver their medicines to their homes, instead of them going to the health centre.
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A WhatsApp appointment line was another initiative, started in this particular substructure of northern Tygerberg.
This allowed residents to make appointments via the app, instead of going to the facility to book appointments like before.
Dealing with fatigue and death
But these quick adaptions have meant more work and longer hours.
"I have been fatigued. The hours have been long because with this pandemic there's no time to plan things over a few weeks or months, so everything has to happen quite quickly and with that comes a lot of after-hours work," she said.
Abbas said she experienced some of her most challenging times during the peak of the second wave.
"The healthcare system at this point was very overwhelmed and under a lot of pressure so bed capacity was a big problem, getting access to oxygen was a big problem, staff shortages because we started losing staff to Covid-19 and many were in isolation," she said.
It was during this time that she had to deal with the "most death" she'd ever dealt with in her medical career.
"With Covid-19 it wasn't just the loss of elderly people or the loss of high-risk people but also a large portion of young people," Abbas said.
But she believes teamwork and the efforts of all healthcare workers banding together got them through it.
"I think all healthcare workers really united during this time. Even though we were short-staffed, everyone understood the nature of the pandemic," she told News24.
"Today, one year later, I can honestly say I am so proud of how the department has managed the pandemic."
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