‘WE’RE TIRED AND DRAINED JUST LIKE MANY OF OUR COLLEAGUES’
Mortuary staff tell of life during covid
THERE are seven keyworkers at the Royal Stoke University Hospital who – along with more than 11,000 colleagues – have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic.
The mortuary team usually sees around 3,500 patients per year, as well as around 30 forensic cases from across Staffordshire, supporting Staffordshire Police.
But since March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK, there has been higher levels of death due to the virus.
Mortuary manager at UHNM, Mike Elton, said: “We initially, like many others at the start of the pandemic worked on adrenaline, working longer days to ensure our capacity wasn’t breached. It was a very new experience which tested us all, physically and emotionally.
“Now we are one year on, we are tired and drained just like many of our colleagues.”
At the start of the pandemic the team consisted of four Anatomical Pathology Technologists (APT), one trainee and two support staff.
But like all services across the NHS and UHNM – which includes the Royal Stoke and County Hospital in Stafford – working through a pandemic can take its toll.
Throughout his career, Mike has been faced with patients that were friends and family and so, over the past 12 months, the team have made sure to check in on each other’s mental wellbeing.
Mike said: “It sounds harsh but we just switch off, and deal with what needs doing, this is our job. If it’s someone we know, there are set guidelines from our association, which are similar to treating your own relatives as a patient if you were a doctor or nurse.
“If the case is difficult for any reason we debrief after to check things are OK but since covid hit we made sure to debrief regularly, checking in on each other at work or at the weekends.”
While the deceased may not be viewed as a patient in a traditional sense, that person is a patient for the people who work in the mortuary.
Staff will admit them, check on their condition and discharge them to the funeral directors.
The team also offers a post mortem service to coroners in North and South Staffordshire. These are patients where medical teams are not sure why the patient had died – but some of these can now be done using a computerised tomography (CT) scan or digital autopsy – so it is much less invasive.
In the mortuary, APTS assist pathologists in the post mortem procedure, including removal of internal organs, collecting samples for diagnostics and recording data.
They also carry out a reconstruction of the patient so that there’s very limited evidence the patient has undergone an invasive procedure.
Mike said: “We also see and support the families of our deceased patients, offering a visiting service where families come and spend time with their relatives in our private suite and collect keepsakes from the patient for family members.
“This can be hair, hand prints or full hand casts with the assistance from the prosthetics team.
“Meeting families keeps us focused on why we have high standards of care towards our patients.
“We all want to provide the best care and this is demonstrated when we do meet families. It’s probably the most emotional part of the job and having to turn away families due to Covid-19 at the beginning was hard, that hurt, especially as a couple of our own team experienced their own loss during this time.”
Some of the mortuary team are also involved in the UK Disaster Victim Identification programme (UKDVI).
This means they can be deployed anywhere in the world where British national are victims of disaster and need identifying. In the past the team has been called to the Thailand tsunami and London bombings.
Mike said: “If there is one thing the last year has highlighted it is that we care for each and every one of our patients in the same way as our colleagues on the ward.”