Covid#10 - Dedicated to the staff of the NHS

The first death from Covid19 in Bournemouth was recorded yesterday, with two in Poole also.  It’s a tragic milestone that brings this emergency much closer to home.  When people die in your hometown, it takes much less than six degrees of separation before you know someone who’s lost a loved-one.

Beyond television drama, I have few points of reference for what it must be like to work as a doctor or nurse in a hospital.  I was seriously unwell about a year ago and had a day in hospital as an emergency patient.  I was enormously impressed by the care I received from doctors and nurses in several departments and by their professionalism.  They were all incredibly thorough and efficient and wonderfully sensitive and kind.  As I got better, I was in no doubt that without their excellent expertise, care and reassurance, my recovery would not have been so speedy.  My experience inspired confidence and admiration.  I wasn’t exactly surprised by the amazing hard work of the NHS, but it reminded me of how much we take them for granted for most of the time, when thankfully we don’t need them.

My cousin is a nurse in Perth, Australia and a friend is an F1 doctor, currently working in Bournemouth hospital.  I'm embarrassed that even after years of watching Casualty and Holby City, I only recently understood what ‘F1’ means!  Along with their colleagues, they are both very much on my mind today and I find myself regretting not talking to them more about their work, how a typical shift unfolds for them or how it affects them.  Not that much of what they are doing today is typical.

I’m not sure their hard work and compassion today is especially remarkable – it’s what they do every day.  What makes it extraordinary in these circumstances is how they so willingly and so selflessly set aside their own fears and anxieties about what must be the most dangerous virus they have ever encountered, shoulder the burden of caring for desperately sick, dying and infectious patients along with the inevitable concern they must have for their own health and the safety of their families and loved ones and manage the pressures of hospitals at the busiest they have ever been together with the apprehension of worse to come. 

My gratitude to the incredible staff of the NHS knew no bounds a year ago when I needed them myself but it and my admiration for them then is far surpassed now.  They are the heroes of this emergency.