How fighting Derbyshire’s Covid outbreak took its toll on my family
TO the general public he is Derbyshire’s public health director; to critics he is a “faceless bureaucrat” leading “nanny state” policies, but to his children he is a pandemic “superhero”.
Dean Wallace has been public health director at Derbyshire County Council for six years but is now heading off to pastures new, into the NHS, having been the secondyoungest holder of his current lofty position nationwide in 2016, at just 36.
Now 42, his new role will see him take the step up to become chief operating officer at Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust, taking the helm from William Jones, who has retired after decades in the NHS. The trust runs a number of health clinics, Ilkeston Community Hospital and Ripley Hospital and provides doorto-door health services.
For many, Mr Wallace has been the public face of Derbyshire’s fight against Covid-19, providing health advice, updates around best practice for social distancing, face masks and hand hygiene and how to toe the line through the many different bouts of lockdown restrictions – local and national.
Speaking in the sunbaked grounds of County Hall, Matlock, Mr Wallace says the criticism he received from the general public was one of the toughest parts of the pandemic.
He says that all too often residents forget that he was not unaffected by the very Covid policies he was ensuring were followed and the advice he had provided, with this critique becoming an intense mental burden. With the support of others he avoided a “breakdown”.
Mr Wallace explains that he was not able to attend his aunt’s funeral due to lockdown restrictions and that his father’s health had quickly deteriorated down during the pandemic. Sharing the news and restrictions of the pandemic – like not being able to see their grandma – with his two children, eight-year-old Seth and Edith, aged six, was a furidentify
YOUNG DAD FOUND HIMSELF PUBLIC FACE OF BATTLE AGAINST VIRUS ther burden he, like many other parents, really living with the restrictions. changes made during the past two had to bear. People don’t consider that, they just years have accelerated what would
Pushing his duties far beyond a want to rant, and I can take the flak. normally have taken much longer to regulation shift became the norm They just see a faceless bureaucrat. implement, including new duties for and wife Debbie took on the duties “Some people say we should have public health such as local testing of home-schooling their children, just carried on as normal but if we and tracing duties. with demands to tackle the pandemic hadn’t had done what we did we His recollection of the start of the described as “massive” and would have seen infection rates pandemic is as follows: “It was just passing in a “blur” – missing and hospital rates increasing the sheer enormity of it, it was information out on valuable family exponentially, the NHS overload and trying to process time. wouldn’t have been all that intel.
He says emotional able to do anything “It was all about trying to get the and widespread else other than message out about what we know so practical support Covid patients, far. Things that we reel off now about from his wife was the resilience face coverings and social distancing crucial. Mr Wallace would not have were not established then. speaks with been there. “At the start, we really just knew pride as he “With public that something was happening in recalls that his health, you have China and that we would have it son, asked by his to impact early soon, we needed to keep calm, look school to produce a enough, because at the data and the epidemiology – of report on pandemic the infections we were what little we had. It all started to heroes, looked up news seeing were doubling in snowball. articles about his dad. seven to 10 days, those infections “None of us have ever seen a lockdown
He says he has always sought to have already happened and in our lifetime, it became reinforcing maintain his own integrity throughout people take time to show symptoms messages about staying at the pandemic, to speak the truth and we did not have community home, then isolating ourselves and and to “say it like it is”. testing to confirm.” supporting clinically extremely vulnerable
He says: “Some people felt I was Talking about the challenges of people and carrying out just making things up, as if I wasn’t the pandemic, Mr Wallace says the welfare checks. We had to try and people in need of support and we repurposed library staff and trained them up as welfare staff.
“As you know, we had all the stuff about asking Government to give us the data (about Covid infections, such as location, occupation) and getting started with testing. We were the first in the East Midlands to start local testing after the trial in Liverpool, we were testing all our care home residents.
“Becoming the public face of it all was a really stressful position to try and manage. When I pushed for community testing most public health directors were more negative about it due to the lateral flow tests but I felt that the public needed to have something to latch onto to help them assess their risks, and I felt we will end up losing the public if we don’t do something.
“It felt really lonely going out and doing that and we were really fast to get that in place.”
During his career Mr Wallace admits to having had bouts of “imposter syndrome”, adding that “someone like me usually doesn’t usually do these jobs”.
He was the first person in his family to go to university and applied to be the public health director for Derbyshire feeling there was “no way” he would be hired. He recalls starting his first day somewhat blurryeyed after lack of sleep looking after his then one-month old daughter.
Before his current role, Mr Wallace, who has lived in the Chesterfield area all his life, had studied sports science and worked at a number of private gyms and taught youth exercise activities in partnership with some district and borough councils.
He saw a newspaper advert for a job working in men’s health as part of the local NHS, visiting workingmen’s clubs and miners’ welfare clubs. After this he underwent public health specialist training before taking on a role in public health consultancy in both Halifax and Derby.
Mr Wallace says looking back on the news articles he has featured in, and the history he has been part of, is something he is proud of.
He starts his new role at DCHS in September.
It was just the sheer enormity of it, it was information overload and trying to process all that intel.