The picture to the right is of me at the end of my first week of my Placement year with the NHS. At this point, I had no idea of the challenges coming my way.
The coronavirus pandemic affected my office greatly from the beginning. Around the middle of March, one of my senior managers tested positive for coronavirus and the impact of the virus on a much-loved colleague forced us into action.We were all told to work from home and were given the choice of using a personal device to connect to the network or actually take home an office desktop. As I was able to connect my laptop, my manager put me in charge of connecting people's personal devices to the trust network, which was a very interesting experience as I became aware first-hand of the difficulties of the office to home transition and just how time-consuming it can be.
Because of where I work and my experiences with the virus, I volunteer at the West Middlesex University Hospital, which is where I'm usually located for work. My duties mainly are focused around distributing the food from the delivery trucks to staff around the wards. It is an eye-opening experience but is always refreshing and rewarding to get out the house after working from home for so long now.
Normally I distribute the evening meals as I always volunteer in the afternoon. Other simple tasks have included wiping down the tables, chairs and some of the sleeping pods for staff. I've noticed all the other amazing acts from across the country including staff from British Airways coming in and serving us drinks and other refreshments.
The other volunteers and I take COVID-19 as seriously as the nurses do in order to protect everyone. We're told to always wear protective gloves and are required to wear a face mask when entering certain words, especially the ICU. The first time I delivered food to the ICU was quite daunting as the sense of this is real and right in front of me made the hairs on the back of neck stand up. Now there are a lot more wards open as the number of COVID patients has steadily decreased, so it comforting to know that everyone's efforts are saving lives and pulling us through this time.
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