COVID-19 committee, which is made up of all concerned departments under the leadership of the Chief Executive Officer, conducts a daily meeting and continues to communicate remotely around the clock to follow up on all that is agreed upon and what is new by eye heroes.
The precautionary measures taken immediately and proactively during the beginning of the crisis include the following:
- Postpone all non-urgent appointments and operations until further notice, along with communicate with the concerned patients, clarify the reasons and answer their questions.
- Work towards reducing the visit to ER for non-urgent cases by providing a remote answering service through a unified number announced on the social media.
- Inpatients visit has been suspended, except those who are allowed through the medical staff and provide tablet devices for patients who do not have smart devices to communicate with their families.
- Limit and minimize all hospital entrances. In addition to, maintain a limited number of people with doing the necessary examinations for them.
- The hospital entrances used during this crisis are equipped with thermal cameras, a sophisticated technology equipped with face recognition to measure temperature, and its capability of measuring a temperature of 25 persons per second.
- Rearrange medical teams as needed for each subspecialty to reduce the number of clinics requiring emergency screening.
- Health Education Committee publishes various written, audio-visual information and guidelines related to the crisis, especially for patients with eye diseases, including the blind and visually impaired individuals.
- Coordinate psychological support lectures for all hospital staff in both Arabic and English to deal with this crisis remotely by highly qualified consultants.
- Ensure that there are all personal protective equipment (PEE) for medical staff and patients such as masks, hand sanitizer, googles and gowns at the time of examination.
- Prevent ingress of any companion with the patient unless necessary to reduce congestion within the clinics.
- To take precautionary measures for KKESH’s Housing Compound.
- Close all gathering places in the hospital, such as restaurants, coffee shops and unimportant waiting rooms.
- Rearrange the waiting areas and put “Leave Enough Distance” posters.
- Close all prayer rooms inside wards and provide inpatients with disposable prayer mats.
- Provide the main prayer room of clinics with instructions to use disposable prayer mats and leave enough distance with the presence of a supervisor to make sure of following the instructions, cleaning and disinfecting the place periodically.
- Provide all self-service machines, whether electronic or banking services, with hand sanitizers.
- To ensure that security guards and housekeepers are trained and educated about the most important points of sterilization and hand hygiene to protect themselves and others.
- To open several channels to re-fill and order medications in advance in order to prepare them before coming to get them or send them to the patient.
- Work on activating virtual clinics for all sub-specialties.
- Work on a virtual meeting with all staff by COVID-19 committee, update them with all procedures and receive their questions and suggestions.
- All academic activities continue to be remotely while ensuring quality as much as possible.
- Continue to encourage all staff around the clock at the hospital and instill a sense of responsibility and enthusiasm in them.
- Quarantine all staff coming from affected countries, follow-up their conditions by a specialized medical team and provide them with all their needs by the operating team.
- Train staff on infection prevention and control standards.
- Utilize staff free time while the reducing of clinic numbers by reviewing patients' records.
- Create a Command Center.
- Sterilization of the hospital according to the highest standards to ensure the safety of patients and staff.
- Activate remote work platforms.
