I fear we’re hastening ‘volume two’ of the Covid-19 story... it isn’t over
Ex-junior doctor and author of This Is Going To Hurt, Adam Kay, tells about his thank-you letter to the NHS and his concerns about the easing of lockdown
lockdown, despite the postponement of his tour dates and the delay of filming the eight-part BBC2 TV adaptation of This Is Going To Hurt, a memoir in diary form of his life as a doctor working in obstetrics and gynaecology. Ben Whishaw will play Adam, who has written the script, while James is producing it.
“It’s somewhere between comedy and drama,” Adam explains. “I’m so excited that Ben Whishaw is playing me. He’s one of the greatest actors
Adam Kay says mistakes
have been made over the pandemic and ‘lessons will be
learned’
we’ve ever produced. He was always at the top of our list.”
Things could have been much worse than his work schedule being put on hold, he reflects.
“I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve not lost any family or friends, which is the most important thing. I have a garden and I’m not putting my life at risk on the front line, so all things considered...”
Adam and James moved from London to a village in Oxfordshire at the end of last year, where they spent lockdown.
“Our friends thought it was some breakdown, but in retrospect it was quite prescient as it means we have a garden, which makes us extremely lucky. I’ve got lots of friends on floor 13 of a London high rise.”
Two of his siblings are doctors and he admits he does worry about them, along with many of his friends who work on the front line.
“A friend of mine said on Facebook right at the start, when doctors and nurses and midwives were dying when there was a crisis with PPE,
‘This isn’t really what I signed up for’ and it’s true. You don’t go to medical school thinking that, ‘This might cost me my life’.”
He has abided by the lockdown rules, wears a face mask wherever he goes and won’t be hurrying to the pub any time soon, he says.
“My gut feeling is that we are being hasty in getting back to normal and all we are doing is hastening ‘volume two’ of the story. It isn’t over. People are dying. It worries me.” But there is a lot of confusing information out there, he observes. “My husband spends a lot of time on the internet reading studies or articles of dubious value,” he says, wryly. “He gets very worried by this sort of stuff. He’ll read something that says, ‘The virus can persist on packets of cereal for a fortnight’ and suddenly we are Dettol-ing everything that comes into the house. Dettol owe him more of a thank you than me.
“Supermarket shopping is a military operation. It’s like the haz-mat gear you wear if you’re defusing bombs! It’s just a case of keeping us and other people safe.”
Lately there’s been a surge in sales of his first book, This Is Going to
Hurt, published in 2017. It has been one of the top 10 Amazon bestsellers during lockdown, as well as hovering around the top of the Sunday Times Bestsellers list.
We have to look for positives in what has been a gloomy situation, he offers.
“I think there’s been good community cohesion, WhatsApp groups, people buying shopping for their elderly neighbours, the outpouring of love for the NHS, which will hopefully buy the NHS more time and look after the staff.” He hopes that learning from the crisis will help us deal with future pandemics.
“I suspect this won’t be the last pandemic of our lifetime,” he predicts. “Mistakes have been made and lessons will be learned.
“If there’s a vaccine, then that changes everything, but until then I think this virus is with us for the long haul.”
Adam is signed up for two more books and has completed his first children’s factual book, Kay’s Anatomy, a humorous look at the human body aimed at eight to 12-year-olds, which comes out in the autumn.
In the meantime, he is doing what he can to help. All profits from Dear NHS will go to NHS Charities Together to fund vital research and projects, and The Lullaby Trust which supports parents bereaved of babies and young children.
He’s not sure he’ll be hitting Captain Tom’s NHS fundraising figures, though, he admits.
“Captain Tom set the bar pretty high – that’s not where I’ve set my ambition,” he chuckles. “But on a practical level I’d like to see it raise a lot of money for these charities.”
Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You edited by Adam Kay is published on July 9 by Trapeze, priced £16.99