19/09/2021
“As I held his hand he said: “I want the machine, I want the machine, and I want the vaccine. Can I have the vaccine now?” I didn’t know what to say. I explained “It’s too late for the vaccine now, it won’t work, we can talk about ventilation though.” But in the 30 seconds that followed, he died in-front of me.
Another shift, I was sitting with a patient of mine in A&E who was really sick and with unrecordable oxygen saturations. I asked if she’d had the vaccine. She said she hadn’t and sobbed into my shoulder saying: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” and I said: “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m sorry.” She died later that night and I had to call all her family. It’s devastating, when you’re working so hard and living and breathing this virus every single day, and you’re treating people who so often die. Who are young. Who are your age, who have young families. And they haven’t been vaccinated because they’ve listened to people online and not healthcare professionals.
This misinformation being spread... The people that are doing this… They aren’t the ones holding people’s hands when they die. They don’t have to think about what to say as the last words a patient is going to hear, before the anaesthetic kicks in and they are intubated. What do you say? I say: “We’ll take care of you and I’ll see you when you wake up.” But most of them aren’t waking up with this variant. These patients are younger and sicker.
That weekend, when restrictions were first lifting, I was on call in ICU. In our breaks we saw the videos of people queuing outside of clubs to get in at midnight. Everyone coming out of lockdown, celebrating. Meanwhile we were admitting patient after patient after patient. By Monday our COVID ICU was full.
You feel guilt as well, should we be speaking up more? But every time you do, you paint a target on your back. I’ve had horrible messages daily, just for talking about what I’m seeing on the frontline and the importance of vaccines. I’ve had death threats. So instead, most of us just talk about it in our staff room. Sometimes cry. No one else really understands, you know?”
Sammy
