“The look in their eyes, not knowing if they are going to wake up”: nursing student on the ‘heartbreaking’ impact of Covid-19

A nursing student when the coronavirus impact was “heartbreaking” when she returns to the hospital where she was born to help out in the A&E department.

Rosie Wilkinson of Whitnash, Leamington, works at Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, where she was born 27 years ago. She has been deployed there in a six-month paid placement to assist with A&E and began the role last Monday (May 4).

Rosie, who is in her third year of her Adult Nursing degree at the University of Worcester, is from a family of NHS workers. Her mother and sister are nurses and her father is a GP, who trained in the same department where he will now be working.

She said, “It is an opportunity to help. When you see the people who are being affected appropriately by this, it is heartbreaking.”

He added that “he would have done it for free.”

“I didn’t choose to be a nurse because of the money. I do it because I wanted to help and care for people. I would feel much worse if I sat at home and didn’t come in.”

“This is a different type of disease”

Rosie has already been working as a health care assistant at the hospital along with online learning. Her role has seen her act as a broker to supply the intensive care unit so that doctors and nurses do not have to continually remove their PPE.

She said, “What I realized taking turns as a health care assistant is that this is a different type of illness that we are dealing with.

“When you have someone who is young, who is in good physical shape, who is preparing to use a fan and you see the look in their eyes when they enter the room and you do not know if they are going to wake up, that is what I have left .

“You see this may be the last time they talk to someone and they can’t really see the person they are talking to.” Their family is not with them. That is what I am finding really difficult.

“As a runner I have handed over belongings to family members after their death and that has been difficult since they never had to say goodbye.” You can’t even give them a hug.

“You see the staff leaving the room and taking off their masks and see how the pressure has affected their faces and how exhausting the work is.

“At A&E it has also made a difference, as everyone who enters is a person who really needs to be there.”

“It was discouraging”

The A&E department is where Rosie, who is in her third year of her Adult Nursing degree, already has a job after qualifying.

“It was daunting until I knew where I was going,” she said, “because I’ve worked at A&E before I knew I got the support there and I’m excited to be working with them as a team.”

Rosie who grew up in Solihull, initially had not planned to enter the infirmary. In 2012, she moved to London to pursue an acting career, but four years later, an accident meant she had to return to live with her parents while recovering from reconstructive surgery on her shoulder.