"The most heartbreaking part is seeing the ‘John Doe’ testing samples, which belong to the newborn babies who are yet to be named. They are so small but still need to be tested.” Facing thousands of testing samples each day, Hazel makes no complaints about the heavy workload as she believes that every test result counts - the sooner doctors can understand a patient's condition, the better treatments the patient can receive.
Last December, PolyU's research team led by Dr Gilman Siu, Associate Professor of the Department of Health Technology and Informatics, transferred the University's laboratory equipment and their self-developed reagents for whole-genome sequencing to the Princess Margaret Hospital for the establishment of a rapid genome sequencing laboratory. Being the key researcher of the team, Hazel helped prepare the operation manuals for the hospital's medical laboratory technologists and instructed them on testing.
Whether it be through backend support or frontline participation, Hazel believes that doing the best we can is the greatest contribution we can make to fight against the epidemic.
