‘This virus is no joke — COVID-19 kills and that is reality’ — that’s the message from staff at the Isle of Wight NHS Trust who have spoken about their experiences with the deadly virus.
In a video shared at the Trust’s board meeting on Thursday, 3 staff members told stories of how their jobs have changed and shared feelings, including frustration, sadness and gratitude, about working on the frontline against coronavirus.
Ritchie Devena, a healthcare assistant who has been transferred to work in emergency care, recovered from symptoms of COVID-19 only to come back to work – looking after patients dying from the virus.
He said:
“I had symptoms in April, just a few days after Public Health England announced the new guidance for PPE, which in my opinion was a bit too late for some of us healthcare workers.
“Miraculously, I recovered and eventually was back to work after three weeks, at Wellow Unit, looking after patients who are in their last days of life.
“This was the time where the reality hit me, looking after patients who are dying of the virus.
“In one of my shifts, I was sent to the isolation ward to help look after five patients in a bay who were all Covid positive. I went home that day depressed, I was in tears, a small realisation hit me — seeing patients who are struggling to breathe, even with the high flow oxygen knowing they wouldn’t make it, seeing family members in tears not knowing what to do — thinking this could have been me or my wife a few weeks ago.
Article continues below this advertisement “I was angry to see people break the lockdown rules, one thing for sure this virus is no joke — Covid-19 kills and that is reality.”
Pippa, an emergency department assistant, said it was a very difficult time, where everyone is wearing a mask and as she is deaf it is very difficult for her to lip read. However, some of her colleagues have been learning to sign which is a big support to her.
Jay, the staffside lead at St Mary’s Hospital, in Newport, said he knew at the beginning of the outbreak he was going to be needed on the frontline and ended up supporting the community nursing teams in the West Wight. He said:
“There are three things that stick in my mind from my experience,” he said.
“The first thing was the government’s guidelines and PPE — we had PPE on the Island and we had plenty of stock. It was distributed really well, really quickly and efficiently.
“However, the guidance from Public Health England slowed that down in what and when we should be wearing it, causing huge anxieties and stress levels within staff.
“Once we got the guidance and everyone knew what they were doing things were settled and we were able to crack on and do what we needed to do.
“Secondly, I was so shocked how Covid-19 had spread across the care homes on the west of the Island where I was working. It really was a reality check for me and that this was real and not a test.
“Thirdly, how immensely proud I am of our workforce. As staffside lead this is something we encourage – we knew staff would be anxious and worried about working in different areas with different practices but they mobilised, they cracked on and it was absolutely brilliant, I am immensely proud of that.”
Well done team NHS on the Island let’s hope all your hard work is not undone by the minority who think its all over
Indeed Christopher and the idiots who think it wasn’t here in the first place and the “money matters more brigade” and the “I’ll find a reason to get my children back to school cos their education is more important than their lives at this time” kinda folk.
Read this post and take it all in all you idiots who were saying ‘this virus is a fake and we are all sheep for following the rules’. The staff at St Mary’s Hospital have experienced death and conditions like never before. Thank you to you all for giving us a very small incite into some of the very difficult situations you have had to endure. Well done to all who work at the hospital and have been on the front line with COVID.
opinions matter – the staff at st marys whilst doing a great job, see many different things happening to people, however, all these other things, do not warrant the destruction of the economy.
japan didn’t have a lock down – 7 deaths per million people.
there are loads of things that can kill people every day, without cure, yet we do not lock down the country and make people wear muzzles in on the bus.
It’s funny.. there’s always one ignorant moron who thinks they know better than those experiencing stuff first hand. Sadly, nowadays, people like ‘anon’ seem to be proliferating.
So there is a difference between using a usernam ‘anon’ and just one single unverifiable username is there??
Anon: This story isn’t about the economic situation, it’s about public health and the great job NHS staff are doing on the Island. If you want to moan about lockdown impacting the economy pick a relevant story to comment against or write to Bob Seely. Better still stand outside the Council offices in Newport with a placard on a stick. None of that will make a jot of difference.
Idiot!!!! Lots of things kill us but not all contagious!!!
Some people are so greedy, they only think about the money, everyone else’s life doesn’t seem to matter.
Sadly so very true.
All you wonderful people plus carers of all sorts and everyone who have kept the essentials in life going by carrying on even though they put their own health/life at risk, I salute you and cannot thank you enough
Well said Christopher , but it’s amazing to see people out there with very can’t happen to me attitude .
Protect yourself and others
It is not the people that have ‘given in’ to CV lockdown or restrictions, it is a fact that we cannot lock our workforce away until, or even IF a cure is ever found.
So many now are in reality that we will all likely catch this eventually, as avoiding such a highly contagious virus when working in our normal jobs is virtually impossible and impractical for many jobs.
For many, someone, or something not to go wrong just once, in months or years of post ~C~V life would be a miracle.
Children will bring it home from schools, the coming long wet, cold winter will make it a nightmare knowing if you have a cold, flu, or are soon to die or infect your family.
Queueing outside shops in driving rain, and wind, trying to keep a mask on, doing hard physical jobs wearing such protection will become impractical and many will fail to keep up the level of security needed. Fine for office staff with just a mask, a clean dry environ and a bottle of gel at hand, try building work, mechanics, and many other jobs where such will never work in ‘the real’ world.
So as that reality sinks in, people wonder if the fuss, the restrictions IF you are likely to catch it by accident anyway, even if being ultra careful, is worth the added fuss, stress, expense and pressure of daily life, and they just reside themselves to the fact that if it ‘happens’ it happens.
Like the guy in the article, some will survive some won’t, but the alternative is we all endure an impractical life style for maybe the rest of time.
A hard call to make for some.
Brilliant work by the NHS thank you for all your continuing hard work! But also such a hard time for all, it is hard living with these restrictions whilst many will stick to the rules as much as is possible for some it will become too hard and people will make mistakes its life.
One of the most important things is to support each other as much as you can, lend an ear and be there for one another.