Shadows of the Past and Future | Infectious Diseases Launceston General Hospital
May 26, 2023
The latest publication from the Launceston General Hospital Historical Committee is now available to purchase from the Clifford Craig Foundation.
Shadows of the Past and Future | Infectious Diseases Launceston General Hospital has been produced by Paul A.C. Richards and Colleagues, and offers reflections of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Tasmania.
Contributors include the LGH’s Head of Infectious Diseases Professor Katie Flanagan, Former Chief Health Officer of Tasmania Dr Roscoe Taylor and Emeritus Professor of History Professor Stefan Petrow.
This book is available to purchase for $55 from the Clifford Craig Foundation office on Level 5, LGH. It can also be purchased online.
You can read a summary on the book below, written by Professor Dale Fisher - Singapore-based chairman of the World Health Organisation’s Outbreak Alert and Response Network.
Reflections of COVID-19
In February 2020, the World Health Organization formed a joint technical mission with Chinese experts to investigate the transmissibility, severity and necessary interventions for the novel Corona virus outbreak first identified in Wuhan through December 2019. The report from that mission stated that much of the global community was not yet ready, in mindset or materially, to implement the measures required.
Indeed no country was spared the devastating impact that ensued. COVID-19 traversed the world exposing weaknesses in not only public health and hospital systems but any vulnerable setting of society including nursing homes, food processing plants, prisons, homeless shelters and dormitories. Leaders and national coordination and communication mechanisms were tested and often found wanting.
In compiling this book at this time, describing the impact of many other outbreak prone infections, Paul Richards reminds us that outbreaks have effects well beyond the immediate health effects. We will not understand the true impact of this pandemic for years. But, we do know its not only about COVID-19. Countries will need to review their all-cause mortality as well as outcomes not immediately related to physical health. What will be the social and economic impact of repeated lock downs and prolonged border closures that in some cases have divided families and destroyed businesses.
Every country and every sub national region has managed the pandemic differently determining which advice to value and factoring in geographic advantage and community priorities. All agree however that while we have learned a lot through this pandemic we simply have to be better prepared in the longer term for the next event as well as to have a greater sense of respect and urgency in its earliest stages.