“A year that will be spoken about for the rest of my life” – part 1
Paediatric nurse Tania Olive Collyer, was working in India when Covid-19 hit the UK. Tania shares her story about what it was like leaving her new home and traveling back to the UK to be redeployed to The Queen Elizabeth Unit at The Royal London Hospital.
“It was in March 2020 that I sat crying after reading an article about how Italian healthcare staff were struggling to cope during the first wave of Covid-19, I could feel the fear and anxiety building across the world.
“One month before the pandemic, I left my nursing role in the paediatric emergency department at The Royal London Hospital, to live in Amritapuri, an Ashram in India.
“After seeing the situation unravelling on the news, I contacted my previous matron at The Royal London and said: ‘If the hospital starts getting as busy as Italy’s and you need help, I will come back’. She replied saying they were managing, but thank you. I thought ok, I had offered, that was all I could do.
“One week later the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) put out a national call asking all retired nurses to enrol back on the nursing register to help respond to the pandemic. It was then that I received a message from my matron asking if I could come back to help; a lot of staff were off with the virus, and they were worried about what was to come.
“Two days later, I boarded one of the last flights leaving India and was heading back to the UK. I thought I would be back after a month or two, but still to this day, India has not reopened its borders to tourists.”
Touchdown in London
“Arriving in England felt surreal, the streets were empty, I felt anxious about what lay ahead.
“My first day at work was the first day of the national lockdown; 23 March 2020. I had worked in the children’s emergency department for over 15 years, if this area were quiet, we would help in the adult’s department. My first few weeks back at The Royal London were spent there.
“My first thoughts were how organised the department was. Tthere were Covid and non-Covid areas, they had thought of everything to keep us and our patients safe. However, the patients coming in were sick and like nothing we had seen before; they could not breathe, their X-rays were just two lungs covered in white. It was Covid pneumonia.
“Within two weeks of returning, the adult emergency department was overrun. The areas were split into several zones, of which the sickest Covid-19 patients were cared for in zone A and zone B. Zone A was where the sickest Covid patients were treated; they required more oxygen either by CPAP (an oxygen face mask), intubation or ventilation. This area was constantly full.
“One patient would leave, and almost instantly another was admitted. Zone B was a 15-bed area for patients not requiring full resuscitation, but they needed oxygen. Again, this was constantly full.
“The speed at which this virus took hold was frightening. Patients who arrived at hospital talking, were entering their final moments hours later.
“Some patients had been so scared to come in that they had stayed at home, by the time they came to us it was sometimes too late. People were scared; one of our nurse colleagues in his 30’s was admitted to intensive care, we all felt vulnerable.”
From summer to second wave
“Over the summer things seemed semi-normal. The emergency department was busier and there were still suspect Covid patients, but very few. As life seemed to return normal, as kids went back to school, when you could sit and eat in restaurants and pubs and go to gyms again, the Covid cases started to slowly rise.
“We knew there would be a second wave, and in preparation our matrons asked for volunteers to be redeployed to the adult critical care unit (ACCU) at The Royal London. I felt like it would be a great learning experience and I wanted to help, so along with nine other colleagues we began working on the unit in November 2020.
“The adult critical care unit increased three-fold from 44 to 155 beds at the peak of the second wave (January 2021). Staff were being redeployed from across the organisation to support the second wave response. 70 intensive care nurses joined from St Bartholomew’s hospital along with nurses and doctors from a whole range of other specialties, including army medics who worked with us during January.
“Things were at their worst between mid-December to mid-January. After four days off you would return to yet another newly opened ward for critically ill patients.
“At this point nurse to patient ratios were 1:4 (they are usually 1:1), and the nursing jobs were piling up. Before the support cavalry arrived, and the infection and death rate were its highest.
“There was a hopeless feeling; how could it get any worse? Unfortunately, it did.
“As an emergency department nurse, I was counted as an ‘A’ nurse; we had some critical care experience and could look after one or two critically ill patients under the supervision of an intensive care nurse.
“Two patients are a lot of responsibility even for the most experienced nurse, these patients need several drug infusions and continuous suctioning to avoid phlegm build up.
“From a senior and confident nurse, I went into a role where every day I was having to prove my capabilities and trust in others experience and knowledge. The whole experience was overwhelming.
“One of the hospital porters told me they had taken 26 bodies to the mortuary in a 24-hour period. That is a lot to process, and it was not uncommon for nurses to help with last offices, which is the process of washing a patient’s body once they have died and putting them into a shroud.
“Although always heart breaking, it also feels like such an honour to be able to do this for a patient and to respect them in these moments.
“I worked a night shift with a radiographer who was doing a ‘nursing’ shift and I expressed how thankful I was that she had been there for me that night. She said she did not feel like she had done much. I assured her that her help in turning patients every few hours, stocking up the gloves and aprons, emptying the sharps bins, urine bags and running the bloods gases, was incredibly helpful when it felt the list of jobs was endless.”
In part two Tania continues her personal account of her time in one of the largest critical care units in the UK, and sheds light on how certain patients stay with you forever and the affect the pandemic has had on nurses mental health.
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