Cheltenham’s Covid Front Line Dr Clare Oliver (Q, 2009) to sleep I awoke later that day with a greater, less hazy, comprehension of what the next few months might entail.
Clare at College
Clare now
I will never forget the strange anticipation I felt when rumours spread that Gloucestershire NHS Foundation Trust had admitted its first positive case of Covid in March 2020. This highly infectious and life-threatening virus, which up until then felt very far away, was suddenly here on our doorstep. In early April I received a phone call, woken from a post night shift sleep, asking if tomorrow I could start work in Cheltenham’s ITU. Without hesitation I said ‘yes’. Returning back
The first time I stepped onto ITU, I was taken aback by how unrecognisable the unit was; there were now twice as many beds and every patient was ventilated. The coming months were to be extremely tough. Long shifts in PPE felt restrictive, hot and uncomfortable, but I was strangely comforted by the fact that the visors had been made by the DT department at College. The iPads we used to communicate with our patients’ loved ones were provided by charities supported by many OCs. During one brief moment of levity, I and one other doctor took up the challenge of
drawing trains to decorate the bedspace of a patient whom we had discovered from his relatives was a railway fanatic. After weeks of ventilation, his first words to me were, ‘that Flying Scotsman is pretty rubbish.’ I’ve never felt so elated to receive such a bad review! College has always played a core role in the community and never was that more evident than during the first lockdown. They provided free parking to hospital staff and made accommodation available in Westal for ITU consultants so they could be close when needed. The College community came out in force for the ‘Clap for Carers’ and this support was very visible from ITU spurring everyone on in the final hours of a shift. And who knew that Mr Wright, once my Latin teacher and now my neighbour, was so effective at banging a saucepan? Many arduous hours and lots of tears later we hope we have finally turned a corner. It has been tough for everyone but the support shown to us by so many, including College, helped us work our way through it. I have never been prouder to call myself an Old Cheltonian.
FEATURES An ‘NHS hero’ knitted banner displayed on College railings during the first lockdown.
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THE CHELTONIAN 2020-21
Clare and colleagues in full PPE in ITU.
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