The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a global health crisis. Non-COVID diseases across specialties have been significantly compromised. The greatest challenge has been to continue providing care to non-COVID cases with minimum transmission risk to health care workers, patients, and caregivers. In this specter, better described as a medical holocaust, we present our experiences of dealing with acute neurological patients who could access our facility. We attempted to work on three key areas - initial screening using a more inclusive, dynamic checklist for COVID suspicion over and above the emergency triage, a mandatory initial holding on a separate floor of our inpatient service equipped with infection control strategies similar to a COVID-designated area, and daily screening of health care workers and caregivers for symptoms and possible exposures. It was a steep learning curve, a couple of close shaves, and many more lessons that went into the development of an algorithm that seems to be working well.
Keywords: Access to care; COVID-19; acute neurology; models of care; underserved populations.
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