Published Sunday, July 5, 2020 9:09PM EDT
Last Updated Sunday, July 5, 2020 11:49PM EDT
"Wow!! Today is the first day since Mar 14th that our Intensive Care Unit are #COVIDー19 patient free! Thank you to the 6th-floor staff and physicians that have bonded together and provided exceptional care in this pandemic. Today is a day to celebrate at #HRH," the hospital posted on Twitter.
"We are very pleased to celebrate the fact that we now have zero COVID patients in our ICU at Humber River Hospital," Pulle said.
"We've had many different emotions over those last four months, starting with fear and anxiety and ending with utter exhaustion."
In an interview with CTV News Toronto, his fellow doctor at the hospital, Dr. Jamie Spiegelman, described how the hospital managed to reach the milestone
Spiegelman, who is an internal medicine and critical care specialist, said everyone was stressed and afraid of the novel coronavirus at the beginning because there were many unknowns about it. Many were scared to go into patient rooms.
"We were not sure how contagious it was. We were not sure if our PPE was good enough to protect us," he said.
"For the first two to four weeks, sometime at the end of March and early April, we were fearful that we would get COVID from our patients."
However, as doctors learned more about the virus and how to prevent from contracting it, Spiegelman that they have become quite comfortable in treating COVID-19 patients.
"Most of my days are spent in the ICU. The last three to four months, we've been relatively busy," he said.
"We've been quite full for most of those months in terms of having both COVID patients and having non-COVID patients."
At the pandemic's peak, Spiegelman said some patients were needed to be sent to other hospitals that had more capacity. He noted that at one point, nearly half of the ICU beds had COVID-19 patients.
In the last couple of weeks, however, he observed that the ICU had become less busy until Friday when it recorded zero coronavirus patients.
Even though he considered it a big victory, Spiegelman said what was more important was the small victories. These include patients who survived COVID-19 and leave the hospital.
"Everyone's quite happy that we don't have to deal with COVID-19 patients and that we kind of gone back to our normal routine," he said.
"But then, at the same time, we're still using all precautions because we don't know when it's going to come back."