Alumni News

ALUMNI NEWS Covid-19 Edition.

By John Weitzel

We felt that this year rather than highlighting alumni who had featured in the News we should concentrate on just a few of the many ways that alumni have helped in responding to the coronavirus crisis.

The most interesting analysis of what life was like for those on the front line came from Peter Brindley (Class of 1987) who is a Critical Care physician at the University of Alberta. He used his was reduced to urgent or emergency

knowledge of military history to write a thought provoking piece ‘Life in the Trenches’ in Canada’s National Post. “Like you, we health-care workers are scared as we prepare to ‘go over the top.’ Like the elderly, I have healthcare colleagues who worry that we are considered expendable, and those fears need to be heard and addressed. Regardless, I am reassured that at the bedside we have each other’s backs: which is a good job given the daily need to ‘buddy-check’ protective equipment. Hyperbole aside, I truly have never been prouder of our staff. Moaning has been replaced with meaning, and many of us are surprisingly happy not being resigned to barracks.”

It was a similar story closer to home. John Hardie (Class of 2007) who moved into medicine after studying Music at Oxford is a Doctor in an ICU in Surrey. There he was ‘redeployed’ from the cancellation of his routine work at present nationally although we

operations to help with the vast increase in ICU patients where his familiarity of the ‘acute’ was a big bonus.

For Marcus Wood (Class of 1992) the change to his normal working week was even greater. As a Consultant Anaesthetist at Leicester Royal Infirmary he changed to a 12-hour shift system including resident nights. He wrote: “As Anaesthetists are advanced airway specialists who have intensive care medicine, we have been tasked with intubating the suspected/ confirmed Covid19 patients in A&E, transferring them to Intensive Care, setting up the ventilators and placing the invasive lines. All this is done whilst wearing full PPE which includes a full face respirator for most of us. The PPE becomes uncomfortable after about 4 hours but it’s obviously vital to be protected against the virus.”

It was a similar story for Michael Glasby (Class of 1991). “My work as a vascular interventional radiologist in Leicester would normally entail a varied mix of procedures throughout the body for limb circulation problems, aortic aneurysms, kidney dialysis, uterine fibroids, prostates etc. However, with the corona virus pandemic, virtually all of the routine practice was stopped as wards were cleared for patients suffering with Covid-19. Within a couple of weeks, the clinics, corridors and public areas in the hospitals, which would normally be bustling with outpatients and visitors were eerily quiet. Conversely, respiratory wards and intensive cares were exceptionally busy. Within my speciality, our practice cases mainly while adapting to different ways of working using PPE, social distancing, using video conferencing to discuss patients and staff often having to self-isolate.”

However, it wasn’t all about Covid-19 as Jon Mutimer (Class of 1992) wrote. “I’m an orthopaedic consultant in Cheltenham. No elective (planned) been trained in varying degrees of

have our trauma to continue with. We have redesigned our rota to continue to do trauma operating and fracture clinics as well as taking minor injuries from Emergency department. Other activities include working on the wards and in ITU which is a bit of a change for a surgeon!!”

For our most recently trained Doctors it was much the same. Will Crookes (Class of 2013) a Foundation Year 2 Doctor working in A&E at Chesterfield Royal Hospital wrote: “The Covid-19 Pandemic came as a new challenge to Doctors and other Healthcare Professionals at all stages of their careers. As a Junior Doctor in my second year of work, working in the Emergency Department at a time like this pushed me to learn quickly and be flexible, adapting to a situation which, at the height of the initial surge, was changing on a daily basis. With rotas altered to provide optimum staffing levels in key areas at busy times, we were working a lot of unsociable hours, particularly nights; sometimes for several weeks in a row. Whilst it has been exhausting, being given the responsibility to assess a high burden of critically unwell patients has been an experience which will serve me well in my future career.”

Keeping the NHS supplied with critical goods was the job of Will Gardner (Class of 2003) who has worked all his life in the transport industry and currently works for Pall-Ex. He found himself on the front line supporting key workers and industry, having signed ‘The Armed Forces Covenant’ last year. Providing food for the NHS fell to Rosie Thomas (Class of 2012) who, after finding her work connecting supply teachers and schools had fallen to zero, shifted to volunteer for the start-up organisation ‘Meals for the NHS’. Working shifts up to 14-hours long, with no access to food after 5pm, and PPE restrictions making it almost impossible to find a meal outside hospital walls, NHS staff had a serious problem, and it needed to be solved. Founded on 21 March 2020, in its first 100 days 100 volunteers supplied over 300,000 meals to 146 hospitals

Harvi Poonian (Class of 2009) was volunteering for Loughborough Against

Corona (LAC) – a group of student volunteers helping self-isolating local residents. LAC helped with close to 1000 requests from at least 200 vulnerable residents and the model has expanded beyond Loughborough to 24 such groups in 9 countries. Harvi was managing LAC’s day-to-day operations. She told us “we have a refined process to match volunteers and residents while keeping a local community feel. The model I built for Loughborough was then used for Oxford Against Corona and this has now been exported across the world to the other hubs”.

There were many ‘unsung areas’ of our normal life that did not receive the high profile and media coverage that the above did. One of these were the pharmacists. Malcolm Brown (Class of 1990) was typical of these. In Urmston, Manchester, he and his 25 staff opened their pharmacy for over 100 hours a week only shutting for the odd hour at lunch time and in the early evening to catch up with the increased workload and cleaning down, often working late into the night to complete prescriptions in readiness for drivers to make deliveries to 20 nursing homes the following morning.

Given Malcolm’s workload he would not have been able to enjoy the music supplied by both the Foundation’s Music Department and alumni that the vast majority of the country with so much free time were able to do. Billy Rigg (Class of 2018) produced a virtual orchestra for the Sheffield University Wind Orchestra involving 36 musicians recording their part of ‘Music from the Incredibles’ in their homes during isolation. However, Chris Hill (Class of 2016) did not need help from anyone else cleverly producing a ‘oneman flute choir’ to play the Intermezzo from Cavaliera Rusticana.

Those hours spent in ‘lockdown’ we know put immense strain on our youngsters and charities supporting them found their donations decreased drastically. Siena Hayes (Class of 2016) did a lot of volunteering for NSPCC Childline whilst at LHS and has continued to do so whilst studying medicine at Cardiff. She decided that to raise awareness and money for Childline she would do an ‘isolation ironman’. With no access to a pool she rowed 3.8km, switched to her indoor Wattbike to cycle the 180km and finally ran the marathon (42.2km). She achieved this in 9 hours and 10 min and raised over £2,000. Freddie Peace (Class of 2013) had a similar idea to raise £2,000 for Meningitis research and his success at achieving the ‘isolation ironman’ was covered by BBC East Midlands Today. He completed the challenge in 10 hours 56 minutes.

BBC East Midlands Today also covered the stories of three other alumni. Jeremy Parton (Class of 1983) inspired his year 7 at LGS to perform over 500 acts of ‘Coronakindness’ during lockdown. He writes: “All of the planned celebratory activities had been cancelled or postponed, but the boys were still brimming with energy and enthusiasm to do something meaningful. Options were limited, but the combined efforts of the splendid Year 7 tutors envisaged a project which referenced the 525 anniversary, and the school’s embedded commitment to help others. Coronakindness 525 encouraged the year group to complete 525 acts of kindness for those around them. The boys were continually reminded about social distancing, and there was no requirement to raise money or seek publicity or thanks. The project was a huge success and over a period of five weeks, the boys exceeded the target by far. There were some impressive fund raising efforts, including a static cycle from Lands End to John o’ Groats, and a virtual climb of Mount Everest via the hall stairs.”

Not surprisingly coverage was given to Harry Gurney (Class of 2005) who last year was named Nottinghamshire’s Sportsman of the Year and was preparing for a stint in the Indian Premier League. Coronavirus scuppered those plans and also those of Stuart Broad who should have been playing for England in Sri Lanka. Instead the pair re-opened one of their pubs as a takeaway and village shop. A free delivery service was also available for over-70s and NHS workers in the local area. Harry said: “We hope we will allow people to pick up essential goods without having to go to a supermarket. Here we’ve got the essentials and almost enough for people to do their weekly shop. It’s been quite full on, we’re essentially trying to launch a whole new business in a couple of days. People have been great, donating baskets for us to put fruit in and donating furniture for us to stack tins on.”

However, by far the greatest media coverage was achieved by the ‘rainbow socks’ designed by Florence, a pupil at Fairfield, the 11 year old daughter of Victoria and Will Orr (Class of 1987). Produced by their company Orrsum, the 6,000 pairs of ‘rainbow socks’ were soon sold out raising £20,000 for the NHS and bringing a smile to everyone that purchased them!

Once lockdown restrictions were lifted and we were allowed out, Sophie Hainsworth’s (Class of 2008) LoyalFree app came into its own and also had significant media coverage. The app found a new innovative way to encourage people to shop locally whilst also staying safe at the same time. A series of new ‘Home Delivery’ trails appeared on the app, detailing which local businesses can offer their services through online or safe delivery options during a period of social distancing and it was invaluable when ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ was in operation. As a result, Sophie was appointed by the High Streets Task Force to help communities and local government transform their high streets.

Equally clever was the idea of brothers Ian Mercer (Class of 1982) and Simon Mercer (Class of 1985). Ian, a tech expert based in Seattle, had the idea of using Bluetooth signals and credit card sized ‘raspberry pi’ computers to create an inexpensive monitoring and notification system for shops and restaurants called ‘crowd alert’, which detailed how crowded it was inside. All Ian needed was an imaginative way to display the information so called on little brother Simon, a graphic designer based in London, to do the job for him. The idea was so successful that it won first prize of $20,000 in a worldwide competition supported by Microsoft.

‘Crowd Alert’ for elephants and rhinos is something that Jason Barry (Class of 1984) would love to have to deal with. Instead he highlighted that due to Covid-19, poaching Elephant and Rhino has increased by over 200%, meaning that in the case of Elephants we are losing one every 15 minutes. Jason now runs a safari company in Tanzania and is a top wildlife photographer. Do visit his websites www.hdrafrica.com and www.wildafrica. com for stunning photos of these beautiful animals.

These are just a few of the many thousands of alumni that have been, and still are, involved in the Coronavirus crisis in so many different ways across the globe. I hope that I have given an idea of the breadth of involvement and to everyone who has been involved goes our thanks for all you have done.