Healthcare practitioners and Amgen Canada advocate for patients during COVID-19
Healthcare practitioners and Amgen Canada advocate for patients during COVID-19
At Amgen Canada we’re deeply concerned about the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has created for patients. Many have missed medical appointments for screening and treatment, and the situation may have been especially difficult for patients coping with a critical illness.
Caring for patients is one of Amgen Canada’s most important core values as a company, and we know healthcare practitioners share the same focus. In this video, we visit with frontline healthcare providers who have been dealing with the challenge of maintaining active care while preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Watch and hear why they agree that we must all work together to push for continued care for those living with chronic and critical illnesses.
Acute leukemia patients often require admissions of one month, two months. That's already an extremely difficult experience for patients, and COVID's made it that much more difficult.
Number of surgeries were postponed. Number of diagnostic imaging tests, screening, mammography tests were cancelled, and then later rebooked. The challenge has also been that while all of our efforts have been focused on keeping patients free and safe from the COVID-19 virus and keep them as protected as we can from any exposure to that virus, their underlying cardiovascular diseases continue to progress.
A lot of effort has gone into trying to keep people protected and to deliver effective, safe care. It’s just Phenomenal how well the system has risen to the occasion to try to safeguard patients along the way so they can still receive the care they need.
There was no cookbook for how to do this. There was no, you know, prior training as to how you should deliver health care in a virtual setting. COVID has really brought our team together, and I've relied on my colleagues in ways that I never thought was possible.
So I think that's one of the positives is just feeling like my colleagues are a family to me now. And I can rely on them even in situations where we feel like we're at risk. The needs of the cancer patients even before COVID.
Really stems from a lot of the fear and anxiety surrounding such a terrible diagnosis. And we're here to support them both with treatment and the compassion and human interaction necessary. I think we need to continue to advocate for cancer care. We need to advocate for treatment for patients during Covid and beyond COVID.