Inside A London ICU
What’s It Like? is a new series exploring the effects of COVID-19 on the lives and wellbeing of people around the world. Hopefully by discussing how this global pandemic is affecting us all individually and collectively, we can help foster a small sense of hope and connectivity in these uncertain times.
We are currently presented with challenges in many forms, and how this might look to each of us can depend on circumstance, resources and even geographical location. These stories will help tell the human side of COVID.
Be well, stay safe and check in with your loved ones. Kia kaha everybody.
Fazilah reached out to us on Instagram in response to our call for COVID stories. Her words struck us immediately, and she agreed we could share them. “I think it’s important for people to have an understanding of the physical and mental repercussions we are facing, as well as an insight into how much we have changed our practise to try and combat the virus.”
Thank you, Fazilah, for your time and energy spent sharing your experience.
Fazilah, 25
London
ICU Nurse at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
These past three weeks have been, both mentally and physically, the most challenging of my career to date. The NHS is already overwhelmed. Roles are changing and lines are blurring to deal with the speed of this virus. This includes adjustments being made to national policies, but there’s no way of knowing how well these new frameworks will work.
We have ward nurses coming to help after basic ventilation training, but again we are strained by teaching in a high acuity environment, in suboptimal conditions with double, maybe triple the workload some days when we are particularly short staffed. We’re struggling to deal with the demand, and uncertainty is causing mass panic and disruption to every aspect of our lives. But we still have to come to work most days each week and there is a feeling of guilt if we can’t do our very best work.
“Spread kindness and love, but do you have enough left for yourself when you take your mask off and leave for the day?”
Nearly all of my friends have filed an advanced directive/made a will. The part that I find most difficult to shake, is that people are dying alone. Without their families around them. It only makes me want to give them as dignified a death as possible. Spread kindness and love, but do you have enough left for yourself when you take your mask off and leave for the day?
We have the kindest restaurants and cafes delivering food to us every day, which at least reminds us that there are people out there that appreciate us, and are trying to understand the severity of the strain on us. The trust has dedicated a whole psychiatric team for us at this point—there will definitely be a few mental scars, both forming now and following the passing of COVID-19.
As a team, we’re trying our best to be kind to one another and show respect always, but it’s difficult when you are so fatigued and working to abnormal demand (even for the NHS). It’s difficult to get a break most days due to workload and safety; when you do, you feel guilty that your buddy has to wait for you to finish yours before they can go.
“...my dreams were haunted by the things I was trying so hard to push to the back of my head all day.”
Still, we put one foot in front of the other and try to get through the day. At least a few times I have actually left work at work and fallen asleep with what feels like a permanent headache, as soon as I laid down. Only to realise when I’ve woken up that my dreams were haunted by the things I was trying so hard to push to the back of my head all day.
Would you like to share your COVID-19 story with us? Send us an email to hello@counterjournal.co.nz or message us on Instagram @counterjournal, we’d love to hear from you.