Ninewells Hospital honours its frontline healthcare workers

The team of healthcare workers felicitated by the hospital   

Ninewells Hospital, the leading Women and Childcare private hospital in Sri Lanka, providing world-class facilities for the very best healthcare, exceeded expectations with their exceptional service during the lockdown, becoming one of the few hospitals that was geared to meet the COVID-19 challenge with

COO/Medical Director  Dr. Vibash Wijeratne  addressing the gathering

most of its wings of the hospital fully operational including Obstetrics, Gynaecological, Paediatric and Neonatal Care Units.

As such, a special event was held to felicitate its dedicated frontline staff comprising of Nurses, Matrons, Front Office, Customer Care Personnel, Medical Assistants, Housekeeping. Engineering, Pharmacists as well as Security Personnel, who were pivotal in ensuring the smooth running of the daily operations, implementing hygiene and safety measures for the benefit of its patrons during the lockdown and in its aftermath. 

They were felicitated with certificates of excellence handed to them by Ninewells Hospital Managing Director Theo Fernando, Group Director Shamal Perera along with Ninewells Hospitals Director Dr. Thiasha Fernando.  

COO/Medical Director Dr. Vibash Wijeratne said: “Ninewells has always placed immense trust and value on its staff and the pandemic served to showcase their dedication and commitment towards their job and to the community. 

“We saw them putting their lives at risk, to serve each patient with love and compassion, working around the clock and even staying as long as two months in the hospital to attend to all patients patronising the hospital.”

To meet the challenge, Ninewells further strengthened their screening procedure for patients entering the premises with routine temperature and health history checks. Daily reviews by the infection control unit along with the senior management were also done pro-actively in relevance to revising their operations to suit the ever-changing requirements of the pandemic as needed, where the challenges of each day were monitored meticulously and addressed accordingly.

Ninewells being a dedicated women and child care hospital, ensured that all safety protocols were met for expecting mums, resulting in a record breaking number of 487 successful births handled during the month of April, to date the highest number which has been recorded during the pandemic in Sri Lanka as well as in a single month since the establishment of the hospital. 

Fully equipped with modern incubators, ventilators, blood pressure monitoring and oxygen delivery systems and state-of-the-art facilities at NICU contributed to the maintenance of a safe environment for preterm or sick new-borns and premature infants during the lockdown, ensuring that they went home to their families as healthy happy babies.

In facing the new normal, Ninewells recently installed a special ‘Transitional Care Unit’, the first of its kind in the private healthcare sector in Colombo. This purpose built standalone unit is dedicated for paediatric and adult patients with fever and respiratory symptoms. 

Speaking of these initiatives, Dr. Wijeratne said: “We are fighting a war not just for this generation but also for the generations to come. The pandemic knows no borders, makes no distinction between religion, caste, creed or social status and so requires all of us to come together to break the chain and this is what we at Ninewells have worked on accomplishing during the lockdown.”