Daniel Gaston Covas

I was in my General Director position when the COVID-19 pandemic commenced. I had the unprecedented task of adapting the whole hospital facilities, which yet involved building expansion, medical equipment repair, maintenance and acquisition. Most critical areas such as the Intensive Care Unit, Emergency Room, Internal Medicine areas had to be conditioned. We confronted the outstanding challenge of reviewing and implementing all the hospital treatment protocols for this SARS-COV2 disease.

The hospital where I work is a Regional Medical Referral Center with 120 hospital bed capacity. It has an area of

influence of more than 200,000 inhabitants with 5 neighbouring towns. So this also represented a big challenge to deal with these critical COVID-19 cases that were also derived from this towns.

Holding my General Director position also involved being the most significant local healthcare authority in this new pandemics scenario. To accomplish this role I had to work as a team with the local city Mayor and the regional Police Commissioner to appoint the most adequate actions to mitigate the transmission of the virus in our local community.