From The Frontline

Dr Christopher K M Hui has a working life that’s nothing short of dynamic, including juggling daily roles in both Hong Kong and Shenzhen over the past seven years. With the emergence of the pandemic, however, things only intensified. He shares his story here.

- Dr Hui

Tell us a bit about the start of 2020 and how the COVID-19 crisis impacted your work.

On 10 January 2020, we accepted our first COVID-positive patients – they were all admitted to my wards over the course of that first week, at the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital in Shenzhen. We immediately recognised this to be an important, sentinel event.

I worked closely with Professor KY Yuen at the HKU labs to collect all the clinical samples and data, and to draw up the original detailed “map” of the (then) novel virus. It was a real race against time. We didn’t sleep in those first 10 days!

By the eve of Chinese New Year, we knew there was a very big problem on the horizon. I realised it would require a full-time commitment to the frontline, and I couldn’t ask my colleagues to undertake duties if I wasn’t there to support them in person. So I packed my bags after enjoying a traditional “year-end” meal with my family and returned to the hospital.

This story would evolve to go on to become one of the largest local epicentres in the country outside of Hubei Province. And, by the morning of 13 February, there were more than 60,000 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in China.

What new duties did you find yourself handling as the pandemic developed?

As all the COVID patients were being admitted to my wards, I immediately re-organised our staffing to provide 24-hour cover with a six-day-on, three-day-off rest pattern in 12-hour shifts. This reduced the number of staff exposed to COVID-ward duties, while enabling each team unit to rest properly between shifts. We knew this was going to be a marathon and not a sprint.