On 20th March, the first cases of COVID-19 were announced in the capital of Madagascar. The government has moved rapidly to stop all flights, close schools, churches, other meetings, limit internal transport and put other restrictions in place. Although the Good News Hospital has not admitted anything which looks like a viral pneumonia since the first three cases were found in Tana, we've decided to prepare the hospital for the fact that it might come our way.
If it does come here and we do nothing, disaster potentially beckons: in particular high staff sickness rates threatening the normal function of the hospital; scared patients not coming in for life-saving operations or crucial regular medication; and patients/their families who do come picking up the virus here and the hospital becoming an amplifier of the epidemic in the region. Our ability to hold out and proclaim the gospel to lost sons and daughters who need it more than ever at the moment would be seriously compromised as well.
As such we've designed a system to screen for coronavirus symptoms at the gate and essentially keep infected and uninfected people apart. This should protect the vast majority of our staff and allow the normal function of the hospital whilst those with probable Covid19 are picked up and redirected to the government hospital's facility for taking those cases. This has been a considerable technical/logistical challenge, but even more than this a communication one: a lot of the Malagasy staff were initially very very afraid of this virus.
Conversely, although this was very scary for a lot of people, there have actually been some been huge joys and encouragements too with some departments and individuals stepping forward to do more than their fair share. Our young Malagasy doctors really pulled together and worked hard to help us communicate all of this within the hospital in those first days. This has been a real joy to behold.