SA Heart 2022: Remarkable effort makes it happen despite terrorist threat

What do you do when you are ready to host your first face-to-face clinical congress post-Covid-19 with an outstanding four-day programme, featuring esteemed local and international speakers and delegates and exhibitors from the whole of South Africa and abroad attending… and a warning is issued of a possible terrorist attack right in the centre of where the event is being held?

You scurry, you pull together, you replan, you get the creative juices flowing, you work through the night to build a virtual platform from scratch to allow for virtual presentations and attendance, and you work hand-in-hand with the venue’s management and law enforcement agencies to ensure that it goes full steam ahead.

That is what happened at the recent SA Heart Congress at the Sandton ICC. Planned months ahead, the terrorist attack alert by the US and UK for 29 and 30 October was issued only hours before the pre-congress workshops were due to start.

Outgoing president of SA Heart, Dr Blanche Cupido was at the ICC when a colleague phoned from Cape Town, informing her of the threat.

“Initially I didn’t think much of it, but within 20 minutes, I received more than 400 messages from delegates and speakers wanting to know what was going to happen to the congress. The alert created complete and utter panic and chaos.?Two of our international speakers were already at the airport when flights to South Africa were cancelled while several others contacted us to say they were unable to come,” Dr Cupido told AxessHealth.

American exhibitors were mandated to stay away while several other overseas exhibitors also decided to pull out.

“We had two options – cancel the whole congress and face financial ruin or make other plans. The focus from the SA Heart Board and Dr Farouk Mamdoo (the Head of the SA Heart Congress Scientific Committee) was ensuring that delegates remain safe without threatening the viability of the organisation,” explains Dr Cupido.

Initially, the congress comprised a very small virtual component, but the opportunities created during Covid to host big events online made it possible to go hybrid, ironically in line with the congress theme: “Face to face: the Case for Hybrid Cardiology”.

Speakers and delegates who decided not to come, were contacted. They immediately agreed to present and attend virtually. Working through the night, the event organisers, Event Options, built a virtual platform to accommodate the whole programme online.

“However, there was a big dichotomy among delegates – some decided that they wanted to attend in person, others decided against it, and we realised we had to cater for both groups.”

This was made possible by unprecedented support from everyone involved including the management of the ICC that ensured the deployment of increased security measures. The security plans were sent to all delegates with communication clearly stating that the choice was theirs to attend in person or virtually.

“It’s such a joy working with a board of directors who is proactive and getting everyone involved to pull together in such a crisis. Although the programme had to be adjusted, most of the presentations and other activities went ahead as originally planned,” Dr Cupido elaborated.

According to provisional statistics, around 460 delegates attended in person and about 150 online. Measures were implemented to ensure that remaining exhibitors got maximum exposure with the layout of the exhibition hall designed to ensure that delegates had to pass the stands when they went to breakout rooms or during tea and lunch breaks.

“The feedback was amazing – much more than we normally receive. There was so much acknowledgement for what we had managed to achieve without much disruption within a chaotic and unsure situation and I think it has created a lot of goodwill towards SA Heart as an organisation because of the effort we put in to make this happen,” Dr Cupido concluded.