Fire proves gold, arduous challenge. FVH’s CEO Dr Jean-Marcel Guillon affirmed that the dedication and devotion of his team to overcoming the challenges to provide quality medical services for patients during the two years of Covid-19 pandemic. Their bravery, experience and team spirit whilst facing the challenges made FV stronger and grow faster than ever.

None of us will forget the images of patients filling the corridors and stretchers lined up in the parking lot under FV’s expanded roofs, or the sound of ambulances and cries of pain. We still deeply feel the self-sacrifice of our colleagues and wider community, and the senseless loss of life. The moment when FV’s management had to make the hard call whether “to accept or not to accept any patients” still feels like yesterday, and for most of us, that sense of being at the edge of a precipice will never fade.

FV has never experienced such an inundation of patients to its Emergency Department, not to mention the number of patients who had to be treated on stretchers placed wherever there was space. Every time the hospital opened more rooms to receive Covid-19 patients, they were filled immediately, and yet the phone kept ringing as people called in, begging: “Doctor, please save my mother, save my child.”

Dr Vu Truong Son, Head of the Department of Infection Control, was at every juncture at all times to raise and solve issues related to Covid-19 infection control from the community to the hospital, and vice versa. Dr Son hardly slept: most days this young doctor could be spotted in the Covid-19 treatment area, then seen in the Emergency Department, and later found among his teammates providing vaccines for the community.

As FV’s team worked, they forgot the fear that they and their families might get infected. During those unforgettable days, the smiles of Covid patients being discharged from the hospital after a hard journey to overcome their illness were a great source of encouragement for FV’s frontline team to never give up. Seeing recovered patients snatched from the jaws of death walk through the front doors inspired doctors, nurses, and medical staff to work day and night at the Covid-19 Treatment Department both on behalf of patients still occupying hospital beds, and those who would be admitted in the coming days, weeks and months.

Treating Covid-19 patients required the hospital to equip numerous negative pressure rooms, install liquefied oxygen systems, purchase oxygen tanks and delivery machines to treat hundreds of patients at a time, and create separate entrances to minimise the risk of infection for other patients. These implementations meant training staff quickly on the protocols for treating high mortality rate diseases such as Covid-19, and ensuring they were fully equipped with personal protective equipment (PPE) to prevent them from becoming infected while treating others.

The Internal Medicine inpatient area became a place to treat Covid-19 patients. Initially, the department had four rooms; later it was increased to nine rooms with 22 beds. At the beginning of July 2021, when the pandemic reached its peak, the Covid-19 treatment department was expanded to cover the entire boarding area on the fourth floor with 63 beds for patients who did not need ventilators and 15 beds equipped with High Flow Nasal Cannula (HFNC) machines.

During the last days of July 2022, Pier Laurenza, a French photographer and FV patient, received two doses of vaccine under direction of the French Government and saw, first-hand, how professionally FV had organised its vaccination campaign. He asked FV to let him stay at the hospital, to follow the team silently so that he could document this historical moment in time. When asked, “Aren’t you afraid of getting infected?” he replied, “I’ve been vaccinated with two doses of the vaccine, and if the frontline team receiving patients is not afraid, why should I be afraid?”