"According to data from Johns Hopkins University (as of September 25, 2020), Spain is fifth in the world in terms of number of deaths per million persons. The reality in Spain was made obvious by this data. Hospitals have had to make quick decisions in order to increase capacity for COVID-19 patients, and we have seen a 20% decrease in new patients in our radiation oncology departments. The pandemic has in fact forced us to transform every aspect of cancer treatment, regardless of whether the treatment is inpatient our outpatient.
Treatments are priority-ranked (triage), and we've had to suspend or postpone some radiation therapies. We've been relying more on telemedicine, which was a challenge for our IT department in the beginning. And, of course, we've created treatment guidelines in case patients display COVID-19 symptoms or become sick. We have also put measures in place to protect patients and medical personnel: protective masks are handed out at the entrance to our department, and hand sanitizer has been placed everywhere. Our medical personnel wear FFP2 masks and, of course, gloves as well. We also disinfect our furniture and treatment devices regularly. Our patients are not allowed to receive visitors, which of course is difficult for them and their family members. We offer proactive emotional and psychological support to both patients and staff. Emotional fatigue can lead to errors, burnout and increased infection.
Our future will not be the same after the pandemic: digital transformation has opened up new avenues of communication between us and our patients (telemedicine) and also between health professionals (tumor board video conferences, etc.). The pandemic has led to new ways of working together, and we should try to retain the best changes once vaccination arrives and the pandemic is over."

"Our experience as of right now has been very positive. The university hospital outpatient department and the private outpatient department are "jampacked". We are at 100% capacity, and sometimes even more, because urgent and emergency cases are increasingly being transferred to the clinic.
The eye clinic's doors are only open to patients. Accompanying persons have to wait outside. Exceptions are only made for severely disabled patients and children. The eye clinic's spacious waiting rooms have been organized so that all patients are sitting at a distance of 1.5 to 2 meters from each other. The clinic's "firewall" first of all consists of admission controls at the medical center's main entrance as well as controls within the eye clinic itself. Patients are not allowed to enter the examination rooms unless they have disinfected their hands. Following each examination, the slit lamp and the seat are completely disinfected. Of course, protective masks are mandatory for patients and personnel alike, as are protective screens on the slit lamps. Thanks to the strict hygiene rules in place inside the clinic, we have fortunately had no infections and no known cases of COVID-19. This could also be because of the medical center's location, since there are relatively few infected persons overall who live in our district. Because of our high capacity utilization and the apparent need for ophthalmic services, we are very much concerned about the rising number of infections, and we hope that the measures put in place up to now will be enough to contain it and that the clinic will not have to close again for optional treatments."