Croc-scotch relieves testing day
One day nurse Davina Nicholas was conducting the odd swab inside a doctor’s practice, the next she was standing in a car park dressed as though she was heading to work in a nuclear power plant.
Nothing could prepare her, or anyone, for the Covid-19 pandemic as the virus began to sweep across the country, with Hawke’s Bay clocking up 44 cases in total.
A practice nurse of 10 years, Nicholas works at The Doctors in Napier and is one of thousands of medical staff working at Community Based Assessment Centres (CBAC) across New Zealand.
An average day at the Napier centre sees 70 to 100 people arrive to be tested for Covid-19.
Staff remain on their feet all day and cannot sit or touch any surface to prevent the virus lingering on their Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) should a test come back positive.
As the testing centres were outside, the medical team were working in the freezing cold or the blistering heat, depending on the mood of the weather.
While some people were hostile towards staff during the testing process, most were polite and amicable.
‘‘Some people are quite anxious about the whole process, so you try to calm the situation the best you can, but it is what it is, unfortunately. I’d love to dress it up and make it sound marvellous, but that’s not the case.’’
Nicholas said although working in full PPE gear restricted movement, they still found time to keep their spirits high and stay motivated. ‘‘There was a quite a lot of movement,’’ she laughed.
Emma Rogers, who works in the admin team, captured the ‘‘movement’’ of her team enjoying some downtime when testing was quiet.
From downward dog yoga poses to a game of hopscotch (croc-scotch Nicholas calls it), or just a simple rest, Rogers said her team overflowed the bleak atmosphere ‘‘with love and light in every sense of the word’’.
‘‘They are seriously such joys to be around all the time, even when they’ve been outside in the freezing cold for hours on end,’’ Rogers said. ‘‘Someone is always laughing, they’re always happy and despite whatever gets thrown at them, they just get on with it with a positive attitude and make the best out of everything and I feel like that is captured in those photos.’’