Thoughts on the Pandemic

The Pandemic

We lost a lot of patients to Covid,

And a lot of our colleagues were off very very poorly

With Covid.

That was challenging

It made us think about life.

 

A massive influx in patients

In that last kind of period of their lives.

They were seeing us more than family members,

Which was distressing.

We had a lot of upset patients,

Quite depressed patients,

They didn’t see anyone

Apart from a nurse in a mask.

Looked a bit like an alien coming in

No touch, and all that.

 

They shipped everyone out of hospital

And we wasn’t ready for that amount of people

To be coming out.

Lots of people didn’t want us

Because they were scared.

 

They were really scared.

You’re going in giving as much reassurance as you can.

In hospital, it’s a clinical situation

But then, when you’re sat in your home 

With your feet up watching Corrie,

And somebody comes in fully gowned?

It reminded me of ET,

When they come for ET and they’re in the Hazmat suits?

It’s scary to have that when they’re walking in your house.

 

No proper guidelines regarding PPE.

In the community it was like,

You can’t wear a coat,

You have to put your PPE on before you go in the house,

Take your rubbish with you.

This is my car!

When we were fully staffed, our average was about eight or nine patients each a day, and then during the pandemic for example, and when we had a lot of people off, you were talking twenty-five each a day. And everyone was in tears at one point, it really was unmanageable. And nurses were drafted in from other teams and support staff were drafted in from other teams, for example dental nurses, but then found a passion for district nursing and went on to train, which I think is absolutely lovely. 

It was anxiety inducing for everybody,

But obviously you work through it

And you do what you’ve got to do.

Head to toe PPE,

Trying to find the humour,

That’s the way we got through it.

Sore noses.

Sore noses, sore ears.

 

Staff just kept dropping,

One minute you’d have a full team

The next day five would go off.

You couldn’t plan ahead,

People were working without a day off or a break.

 

My civil partnership was cancelled twice,

So in the time that I would have gone on my honeymoon

Both times I just came in and worked.

I’d rather be at work than crying at home!

But it’s next year, July,

All going ahead!

 

I myself lived with long covid.

Psychologically a lot of us have been affected,

Because we were out there,

‘Don’t go to work!’

I says, ‘I can’t, I’m a nurse,

How’s the patients going to survive?’

And that’s what’s in us.

And that's what's in us.