How HK engineers used lessons from SARS to solve new COVID-19 challenges for hospitals

Cannix Yau, South China Morning Post Posted at Oct 19 2020 05:36 PM Veteran engineer Yuen Pak-leung’s first-hand experience with two major public health crises has convinced him his profession is really about people, and finding solutions swiftly when challenges arise. The Hospital Authority veteran, elected president of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) this year, told the Post his attitude about his job was shaped by the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak of 2003. Until then, Yuen saw himself as merely “a spectator” within the medical system, and was focused mainly on technical projects that came his way. “The Sars crisis taught me that I was more than an engineer,” he said. “I learned I had to breathe together with the hospitals and consider myself part of the medical system.” That epiphany helped him when the Covid-19 pandemic struck Hong Kong early this year and hospitals had to respond speedily to a ferocious new enemy. From devising isolation facilities for health care workers and patients, to advising high-risk commercial premises such as restaurants on infection prevention measures, he said engineers had been contributing towards the ongoing fight against the coronavirus, which has so far infected more 5,200 people and left 105 dead in Hong Kong. Yuen, 61, was a government engineer for more than 10 years working on public hospital construction before he joined the Hospital Authority in 1993. Now the senior manager in charge of engineering across all 43 public hospitals, he recalled vividly being asked to produce more than 100 isolation beds within 24 hours at the height of the Sars crisis. Hong Kong was one of the worst-affected places when Sars hit, recording 1,755 infections and 299 deaths over just four months in 2003. Globally, there were 8,437 infections and 813 deaths. The fast-spreading virus took the lives of many doctors and nurses where the outbreak occurred, and in Hong Kong, eight of those who died were health care workers treating sick Sars patients. “One night I received an urgent call from Dr Ko Wing-man, then acting chief executive of the Hospital Authority,” Yuen recalled. “He said all the existing 177 isolation rooms were occupied and asked me to deliver more than 100 isolation beds for Sars patients in one day. “I felt an enormous sense of responsibility, as I had seen many doctors and nurses lose their lives because of Sars.” Yuen used his wits and engineering experience to come up with the idea of installing about 80 exhaust fans that forced an outflow of air from three wards, with air flowing in only through the air conditioners and door gaps. Creating that negative pressure to suck used air out of the wards had the effect of keeping them free of contamination. “By sunset the following day, we had successfully installed the fans and converted more than 100 ordinary beds into isolation beds,” he said. Yuen obtained his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Hong Kong, and has an executive master of business administration from Chinese University and a doctorate from City University. The HKIE he heads has more than 30,000 members and promotes the professional standing, interests and technical standards of local engineers. Yuen said he advised engineers to always think ahead and offer solutions for any possible scenarios in the face of a looming crisis. Soon after Covid-19 arrived in January, sparking a race against time to fight the pandemic on multiple fronts, he drew on his Sars experience early to study ways to convert ordinary hospital wards into isolation facilities. This time, he devised a movable ventilator machine equipped with highly efficient air filters that could create negative pressure to effectively remove the coronavirus in a ward. Using 150 of these ventilator machines, his team converted 400 beds into isolation beds across seven public hospital clusters in late March to help meet demand. Inspired by the speed with which mainland Chinese authorities built the Huoshenshan emergency field hospital in Hubei province’s Wuhan, where Covid-19 cases were first reported, Yuen pioneered the construction of a new type of isolation facility. With the help of volunteer engineers and industry players, a prototype was produced in May for the prefabricated isolation units, which can be built, equipped and furnished in a factory before being installed where they are needed. Just as he learned during Sars, Yuen said the pandemic showed that engineers had a role in fighting Covid-19, by advising the public on maintaining air pipes, and businesses on installing the right air filters on their premises, as well as by creating innovative products such as contactless lift buttons. “Engineers can improve the quality of life of society,” he said.