‘I cried like a baby when I got home and all the street were out to clap’

A HUDDERSFIELD nurse has spoken about the ‘heartbreaking’ reality of the frontline in the fight against coronavirus.

Joanne Morrell, who works in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, revealed what hospital is like for coronavirus patients, their families and the medical professionals treating them.

The mother-of-two also revealed how “terrified” she and her colleagues were when they learned two UK nurses, aged 36 and 39, had died after contracting the virus.

Twenty-three people have died with coronavirus at HRI and Calderdale Royal Hospital so far - twentythree families unable to see their loved ones in their final days, unable to say goodbye.

Joanne, 47, said that is the most difficult part of the current crisis for nurses on the intensive care wards.

“For us, as staff, it’s really hard because we’re taking calls from family who are heartbroken, upset and wanting to know what’s happening,” she said.

“And that’s all they’re getting. Nobody has been impatient or not understood but as nurses we feel that pain.

“When you can’t put an arm around their shoulder, when they can’t see the emotion in your face, when you can’t do what you’ve been trained to do, it’s hard.”

Joanne explained that anyone who shows any of the symptoms of Covid-19 when they come into hospital is immediately treated as if they have tested positive.

The patient is quickly isolated in a pre-prepared side room and tested for the virus.

If the test is positive the patient is either kept isolated for treatment or moved to a special, sealed ward with other coronavirus patients.

There is a strict ‘no visitors’ rule and only assigned medical staff wearing full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), including masks, suits and gloves are allowed on the ward.

Joanne said HRI has been well prepared for the outbreak to hit Huddersfield. She cannot speak highly enough of Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust.

“It has been quite incredible,” she said. “We have got enough protective equipment, we all had our masks fitted in advance and isolation rooms were set up weeks ago.

“There was a stillness and apprehension. We were all ready waiting for it since January.

A few weeks ago, before we got our first patient, we were looking at each other saying, ‘this feels weird,’ seeing it all over the world.

Joanne likened the suspension to a battle scene in a film; when one line of soldiers stand in formation, waiting for the onrushing enemy to slam into them.

But it didn’t happen like that. HRI and Calderdale Royal have managed a gradual influx in cases and not been overwhelmed.

“It has been a steady increase,” Joanne explained. “Day by day it’s getting busier now.”

As an ICU nurse, Joanne is assigned to care for one patient and if that patient has coronavirus she must spend her entire working day in full PPE gear. That, in itself, is physically draining.

Joanne was one of the nurses who discovered she has - in her own words - “an odd-shaped face,” when the Trust fitted staff for masks a few weeks ago.

That means, rather than a more comfortable surgical mask and goggles combination some staff enjoy, Joanne must wear a heavier contraption in the style of a 1940s gas mask.

“That discomfort is nothing compared to the discomfort of the patients or their families”.

After a full shift her face is marked red where the mask has been, after a week her face is sore.

“That discomfort is nothing compared to the discomfort of the patients or their families,” Joanne pointed out.

But nurses need comforting too. And after a particularly challenging shift it takes a lot of restraint to come through the front door, walk straight past your husband and children and upstairs to shower off any possible contamination.

“I’ve never needed a hug more than when I come home,” Joanne said.

That fragile state was obliterated last week, when her whole street in Longwood came out of their houses to ‘clap for the NHS’ at the exact time

Joanne arrived home. She recalled: “I had had a hell of a shift and got back at three minutes past eight.

“The whole street was out and they were clapping already but when they saw me arrive they got louder. “I just cried like a baby.”

Joanne has worked at HRI for ten years, the last two of which she has been an ICU nurse. The NHS has always felt like a family to her but the current crisis is transforming the way staff feel about each other.

The news on Friday that two UK nurses, Areema Nasreen, 36, and Aimee O’Rourke, 39, had died after contracting the virus, hit staff at HRI hard.

Joanne said: “It would always feel really sad, like we’ve lost one of our own, but now it feels like we’ve been punched in the stomach.

“It becomes very, very real and you look around at each other and you feel terrified, anxious and absolutely heartbroken.”

Speaking after news of the tragic deaths broke, England’s chief nursing officer Ruth May said she, “worried that there’s going to be more”.

Joanne and her colleagues are undeterred though.

“We will always continue,” she declared. “Those nurses have gone to work because it is their vocation, they were saving lives. That is what we do.”

In Saturday’s coronavirus press conference, Minister for the Cabinet