Wuchang Fangcang Shelter Hospital: Practices, Experiences, and Lessons Learned in Controlling COVID-19

In early January 2020, the outbreak of the new corona virus pneumonia (Corona Virus Disease 2019, COVID-19) occurred Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province, became the epicenter of the disease in China The rapid growth of patients had exceeded the maximum affordability of local medical resources A large comprehensive gymnasium was converted into Wuchang Fangcang Shelter Hospital in order to provide adequate medical beds and appropriate care for the confirmed patients with mild to moderate symptoms For these hospitalized patients with COVID-19, medication became the mainstay of therapy From 5th February to 10th March, a team of pharmacists successfully completed drug supplies and pharmaceutical services for 1124 patients and approximately 800 medical staff, and, while doing so, received zero complaint, and experienced zero disputes and zero pharmacist infection This paper summarizes the development and construction of the pharmacy, human resource allocation of pharmacists, pharmacy administration, and pharmaceutical services It aims to review a 34-day period of pharmaceutical practice and serve as a reference for other health professionals working on COVID-19 prevention and treatment in other regions , the virus spread quickly throughout the country , and the number of infected patients increased rapidly At the beginning of February 2020, available hospital beds soon reached full occupancy in those hospitals designated for anti-virus treatment To complicate matters further, some medical workers were infected due to occupational exposure, which forced the medical team into quarantine for medical observation Based on clinical manifestations, confirmed patients are divided into mild, moderate, severe, and critical types [2, 3] Since more than 80% of COVID-19 patients were mild or moderate types [4-6], a novel public health measure, Fangcang Shelter Hospitals, was conceived [7] In case of emergency, these temporary hospitals have been able to provide extra beds capacity at short notice and provide classified treatments All confirmed patients with mild and moderate symptoms could be admitted to the Fangcang Shelter Hospital for free medical treatment During the worst epidemic period in Wuhan, a total of 16 Fangcang Shelter Hospital were established Wuchang Fangcang Shelter Hospital was developed from the Hongshan Gymnasium and was one of the first three hospitals accepting patients and was the last one to be closed It covered an area of 14,800 m 2 and housed a total of 800 beds, which were separated across three independent regions in order to optimize management and treatment efficiency During this major public health emergency, pharmacists , as a member of the medical team, have been responsible for providing professional and superior pharmaceutical services This paper looks back at the pharmacy construction