NHS Grampian workers remember experiences of pandemic five years on
Health workers have marked a half-decade since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The anniversary was marked by remembrance services earlier this afternoon, in the chapels of both Dr Gray’s Hospital and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI).
An NHS Grampian spokesperson, announcing the event, said Covid-19 had “turned our professional and personal lives upside down”.
The health board also prepared an 18-minute-long video to help NHS Grampian staff reflect on their experiences.
This featured an interview with Dr Caroline Lacey from NHS Grampian’s critical care team.
During the pandemic, the doctor invited colleagues at ARI to share messages on patches of fabric, which she then brought together into a quilt.
The quilt, now on display in a busy corridor, serves as a tribute to the experiences of the health workers.
“It was very important at the time for us to be able to focus on something, in addition to what was going on around us,” she said.
“As a way of letting out some of the thoughts, feelings and emotions that were being had at the time.
“During particularly that first wave, it was a very unknown time.
“We didn't know what was going to happen, how things were going to play out.
“We had no treatments.
“It was a way of coping with that uncertainty, that unknown, and a lot of raw emotion is there in the quilt.
“It was an outlet for the team to have, so it was important.”
Some of the messages left on the quilt included motivational statements like “We get knocked, but we get up again”, “You are so much stronger than you believe. If you can make it through this, you can make it through anything”.
Others, however, made clear the struggles faced by those closest to the crisis.
“I’m a leaf on the wind,” one health worker wrote. Other quilt patches read: “If you didn’t laugh, you’d greet”, “Missing friends and family”.
But during the hardest times, some messages which were left showed that the team’s sense of humour had maintained.
“I like chips at 2am,” one message said. While another intoned: “Bring back the tea trolley.”
Dr Lacey added that, for some staff, it felt like the five years since the start of the pandemic had passed in the “blink of an eye”.
“Or that it actually didn't really happen, or it was a dream,” she added.
“And it's important to remember what we went through, what we did as a team, how we managed to work together, the way we dealt with it.
“Not just looking after our patients, and coming together to do that, but also how it affected our home life and our families.
“And the fears and the worries that we had around that time.”
The spokesperson for the health board also confirmed that opportunities to reflect on the pandemic would be available “24/7” in chapels across the NHS Grampian area.
“These offer the opportunity to decorate and place a heart on a tree, and to write your own story, expressing whatever you need to express,” they added.
