Dear friends and colleagues,
It is with a heavy heart that we are writing to you to cancel our Iranian Medical Society (UK) Nowruz event on 21st March.
You are already aware of the public concern over the coronavirus and the global impact thus far with many events cancelled.
As a medical and scientific society, we always maintain that any decision made by us has to be measured, aligned with the prevailing NHS position and above all keep the public safety and interest at its centre. Your committee therefore has been monitoring the current events on a minute by minute basis and is now of the belief that on the balance of probability, you will be served better if the event did not go ahead. We want to be very clear that this decision should not cause panic or concern, neither us nor any other similar professional group is in a position to comment on the ultimate risks of Coronavirus and we strongly recommend following the NHS England advice, as the only authoritative source on this in the UK.
We will now approach the hotel to see if they agree to keep the cancellation charges to a minimum. Regardless of their decision and financial losses to the IMS, please be assured that your money will be refunded. Please allow a minimum of 20 working business days for the charges to be reversed, as we have a large number of transactions to process.
Here we also like to take the opportunity to highlight to you our coronavirus relief fund raising page, aimed at combating this disease and help the victims.
Just a suggestion, why not consider donating a portion of the money we were going to spend at the event to this cause, and fight this global disease so we can have events like that soon again?
With our best wishes, Keyoumars Ashkan on behalf of IMS(UK) Committee
According to the latest advice from the Department of Health in the UK, if you have returned from Iran since 19 February you must call NHS 111, and stay indoors and avoid contact with other people even if you do not have symptoms for 14 days.
For self-isolation advice, click here.
All of IMS’ upcoming events are due to go ahead as planned, and there is no reason for concern. We will of course be monitoring the NHS and Public Health websites regularly, and we will update our advice accordingly.
For more details and updates for the UK, please refer to:
Iranian Medical Society (IMS)
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