Coronavirus: ‘I don’t like the virus but I’ve grown to love humanity’: hospital heroine

As acting CEO of Perth’s Joondalup Private Hospital, Amanda Ling was confronted with the first mass influx of COVID patients.

Joondalup acting CEO Amanda Ling in the COVID ward. Picture: Colin Murty

The phone call that Amanda Ling made on “COVID Sunday” triggered one of the most traumatic and testing weeks in her new ­pandemic ward at Joondalup Private Hospital in Perth.

 It’s exactly a month since Dr Ling agreed to take Western Australia’s first mass influx of COVID-19 patients into the hospital’s ward at the top of L-block.

Roughly 12 hours later, one of Australia’s biggest single intakes of infected patients arrived.

The acting chief executive’s “yes” offered a rescue lifeline to the commonwealth and WA governments, which had faced a mutiny from AMA doctors complaining two other designated hospitals were not ready or equipped.

Dr Ling had experience of the swine flu epidemic in 2009 when she was running a major Perth hospital — “so I kind of understood what was coming”, she says.

Overnight, Joondalup staff flicked the switches to negative pressure on the L-block ward to ensure contaminated air was sucked out. They practised “PPE buddy” protocols, supervising each other during every careful step in removing infected masks, gowns and gloves.

Hours later, they admitted 30 passengers and crew from the stricken German cruise liner Artania that had begged the unwilling McGowan government to allow it to dock in Fremantle.

At almost the same instant, two former passengers from the ill-fated Ruby Princess walked into Joondalup’s emergency department. “Suddenly we had 32 really unwell patients,” says Dr Ling, who received another 10 COVID patients days later. “That’s when we realised how quickly these people could get sick — and die.

“You train for it, but it’s not until the rubber hits the road that you are tested. What saved us was teamwork. We could trust each other to work together, nobody ­arguing the toss or trying to win turf battles. It was a rollercoaster that leaves you totally stressed. I don’t think I slept for a week.

“I wanted all of my patients to survive, and the most gut-wrenching moment was when we lost a patient on the Thursday, and one on the following Monday.

“Swine flu was terrible … but COVID has stopped the world.”

The global impact was reflected in the nine Philippine and Indonesian ship’s crew and 21 German passengers lying in beds. “I had two German-speaking anaesthetists, luckily. They did the ward round every day with the respiratory team so I didn’t have to call in interpreters. They even left their phone numbers with the patients.”

During tea breaks, tired staff read out hundreds of uplifting messages of gratitude and shared donated meals and cookies. The daughter of a surviving German patient thanked those who “so touchingly took care of my father”.

A nurse had spent time connecting him with his family back home via WhatsApp.

“This was absolutely the most important thing for us,” the daughter wrote. “It was not always easy for my dad to think positively (while) completely isolated for ­almost two weeks.”

Another man was able to hear from his family before he died.

Despite handling one of the largest single intakes of COVID patients, Joondalup had a zero rate of accidental transmission.

“One of the things I believe made a difference was our buddy system,” says Dr Ling. “If you don’t take off your protective clothing and masks in a certain way, you risk contaminating yourself.”

With WA down to only a handful of active cases and zero new ones, Joondalup is returning to normal. But Dr Ling says she won’t dismantle her pandemic ward until a second, even third wave of coronavirus passes through.

“This disease has been totally confronting,” she admits. “But the best part has been the support you get as a health worker, and as a hospital. It’s appreciation — the simple stuff.

“I may not have liked the virus, but I’ve grown to love humanity.”