الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Since December 2019, the world has been in the grip of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which was initially identified in Wuhan, China and has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. The significant numbers of cases and deaths around the world have left no doubt that the pandemic is putting huge pressure on health systems around the world, exposing even the most high-performing systems’ sub-optimal resilience. The pandemic also has had a physical and psychological impact on healthcare workers (HCWs) due to their frequent contact with COVID-19 patients making them more susceptible to infection than the general population. They have to work in high-stress environments without proper personal protective equipment (PPE) and make difficult decisions with ethical implications. This pandemic shows the need for assessment of health system preparedness and forces healthcare systems to implement changes to health care delivery based on the lessons learnt during the pandemic. |