CU Medicine Brochure

STILL IN THE GAME: CU Medicine vs COVID-19 31 October 2020, the total number of children with COVID-19 in Hong Kong had reached 428. In addition, there were several babies born to mothers with history of COVID-19. While these children were mostly asymptom- atic or at most exhibiting only mild symptoms, many children still required prolonged hospital- ization and isolation. The separation between these children and their families was obviously stressful for all concerned. To Professor Lam, one of the greatest challenges was how to minimize the adverse psychological impact of hospitalization on the affected children and their families. ‘One of our primary goals is to prevent the virus from spreading,’ Professor Lam says, ‘But can you imagine the mental stress of prolonged hospitalization on adolescents and the psychological scars we potentially cause in young infants and their mothers because of prolonged separation, especially if the children who are physically well?’ While adults can while away their time online or via video chat, young children need close physical contact with their families. One way to handle this has been to allow family members to stay and care for young children on a com- passionate basis after balancing the risk of infection posed to the carer. Fortunately, none of those parents who stayed with their children in the isolation wards became infected. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, Professor Lam was already working in paediatrics at Prince of Wales Hospital. Although he was not part of the ‘Dirty Team’, he did tend to children with SARS while serving as a junior doctor on nights. However, even these experiences from 17 years ago could not fully prepare him for the complex and pervasive challenges brought on by COVID-19.