Medics emerge from retirement to help jabs drive
AHUSBAND and wife have emerged from their shortlived retirement to vaccinate frontline workers against coronavirus.
Clare and Jason Kendall have administered hundreds of Covid jabs to key workers at the Southmead Hospital hub since they started volunteering there in mid January.
Retired emergency physician Jason and his wife Clare, a retired palliative care lead, have rejoined North Bristol NHS Trust after decades of working service in the NHS.
Jason said: “We are a small cog in a bigger machine. The vaccination programme is a tremendous combination of science and technology and the NHS to roll it out, which does show what can be achieved.”
The 55-year-old retired from his role as a consultant in Southmead’s emergency department in August, after 22 years at the trust.
Clare, 56, retired after 10 years in October 2019 from her job as a consultant there in palliative medicine, having worked at St Peter’s
Hospice prior to that. She quickly stepped back into an active role during the first peak of the pandemic, however, when the NHS made a rallying call for retired clinicians to return.
The pair, who live near Thornbury, have a daughter and son in their early 20s. Their daughter is also on the Covid frontline working as a doctor at a London hospital.
Clare and Jason had hoped to start their retirement by volunteering in developing countries, but a trip they had planned to Nepal last September had to be cancelled due to the travel restrictions. Instead of relaxing into retirement when their plans changed, they chose to get back into hospital to help ease the strain on their former colleagues.
Clare said: “It’s gone on a long time [the pandemic] and healthcare workers are very tired. It’s volunteers like us who can step in and do a small part of the workload.”
Jason added: “It’s lovely because for the first time ever, I’m in an environment where people want to see me – nobody wants to be in an emergency department because that means something’s gone wrong. People proffer their shoulder with a big smile on their face.”
The vaccination clinic is where many health and social care workers across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, as well as other frontline workers, are invited for jabs.
The couple volunteer there between two and three days a week, and estimated that each vaccinator probably carries out about 50 jabs a day on average.
Jason said: “We don’t keep count but the clinic at full swing was doing about 500-600 a day, with two shifts [a day] and about seven vaccinators on each. We can’t stress how important the vaccine is. Everyone really should be encouraged to come forward to get their vaccine when they are invited to. It’s crucial not just for an individual’s safety, but the whole society.”