“Booking clerks are the crucial communication link between the health care team. The team I work with is awesome and exceptional. We’re meeting and communicating every day about COVID updates. With my co-workers around me, I don’t feel as alone or stressed.
I’m working in the neurosurgery department, and we’re dealing with all the spinal and brain-related surgeries.
When COVID started, we were not able to see patients in-person, which was challenging for our department as patients need to be assessed physically by the neurosurgeon. Instead, we shifted all consultations to virtual.
I’m happy we were able to get all the patients on the waiting list to have their consultations virtually at least. It was a great option for long-distance patients too.
When I call a patient and explain the virtual consult, a lot of them went from being worried and scared about coming into the hospital to being happy that we’re offering a video-call appointment instead.
The majority of our patients are in severe pain, and they’re on strong pain medications, thus coming into the hospital would have been another stress for them.
Now, we’re resuming elective surgeries, and I’ll have a huge list of patients to arrange pre-op appointments for. The Ministry is offering more surgery days to all the surgeons as those cancelled patients need to have their operations done within a specific timeframe.
The good thing right now is the response I receive from patients daily, which is the biggest motivation these days to work passionately.
I receive so many calls and messages from patients with kind phrases like, ‘thank you for coming to work every day,’ or ‘we’re so thankful for what you’re doing for us. You’re our heroes.’
It feels great to be called a hero, but in my vision, the real heroes are those people who are seeing, understanding, caring, respecting and appreciating others. They’re the heroes of their own lives and ours to learn from.”
- Bani, Booking Clerk, part of the health care team