‘Please have your jabs, I lost my wife to Covid’
AHEARTBROKEN widower is urging everyone to get vaccinated against Covid-19 following the tragic death of his wife of more than 20 years.
Jackie Watkins died with coronavirus on November 17, 2020, just weeks before the start of the vaccine rollout in Wales which has now seen nine out of 10 adults receive their first dose.
As the 48-year-old was disabled and needed carers, she would have been one of the first in line for the jab from Swansea Bay University Health Board.
Her heartbroken widower, Phillip Watkins, from Neath, is now on a mission to convince his friends and those who have refused the vaccine to take up the offer for the sake of everyone in their communities.
“The vaccination was announced around the time that Jackie was ill. If she’d managed to hold on for a couple of months then she would have been one of the first ones to get vaccinated and maybe she wouldn’t be where she is now,” he said.
“Even though vaccination doesn’t seem to prevent you getting Covid, it will prevent hospitalisation and those serious consequences where you have to go onto a ventilator or receive palliative care.”
Phillip, who works as a police officer for Dyfed-Powys Police, said he had returned from a night shift on November 3, 2020, to find Jackie complaining of a high temperature, shortness of breath and a persistent cough.
After speaking to the carers, the decision was made to get her a Covid test, as well as steroids and antibiotics, as she was more prone to picking up infections. Two days later Phillip also started to feel unwell with similar flu-like symptoms and sent off for a test.
“When it came back positive for her she was really scared about what was going to happen as by this point she wasn’t well at all,” he recalled.
“By the weekend she was asking to see a doctor as the antibiotics weren’t working. The care company who looked after her also stopped coming as we were all in isolation.
“And I was feeling really bad too. If you’ve been run over by a stampede of buffalo you’ll know how I was feeling. The aches and pains were terrible and I’d wake up shivering cold and didn’t eat because of the loss of taste.”
Jackie, who suffered with fibromyalgia and diabetes, was prescribed even stronger painkillers and steroids to get her lungs working.
“But it got to the point where she just could not breathe. I told her, ‘if we call an ambulance now to take you to hospital, there’s a chance you may never come out’. But she knew she needed expert help.”
Within an hour, Phillip said, an ambulance came to take her to Morriston Hospital in Swansea.
He said: “We didn’t hear from her from the Tuesday to the Friday, then a doctor phoned me up and dropped a bombshell. She basically said there was nothing more they could do for her and it was end-of-life care.”
Phillip and their twin children, Megan and Jack, 14, were able to visit the hospital to be with Jackie during her final few days.
“I didn’t tell [the twins] that she was going to be passing away but they understood that she was in a really bad way. She couldn’t be on a ventilator because of her disabilities, and she couldn’t tolerate the C-PAP machine either,” he explained.
“We stayed with her most of the weekend, back and forth, and despite deteriorating on the Sunday she then rallied on the Monday and was completely coherent. She wanted me to take down lists of shopping and asked me to pick up a cold fruit salad, which she ate.”
However, as they were travelling to Morriston on the Tuesday, the hospital called Phillip to say Jackie had taken a turn for the worse.
“By the time we got down there she had passed away. But the palliative care she received was superb, and our consultant was really fantastic and arranged for aftercare for us all.”
Phillip, who has received bereavement counselling, described Jackie as a very caring, family-orientated lady who loved her children, her dog and trips away.
He is now aiming to raise money for the Friends of Morriston Hospital by taking part in a UK three peaks challenge (Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis) over three days with Megan and Jack at the end of September.
“The facilities that were there for families during lockdown was minimal, so I’m hoping to raise money to improve that side of things,” he said.
Phillip has had both jabs and said he was in favour of Wales’ more cautious approach to easing lockdown restrictions.
“I think masks should be mandatory for the next couple of years. I wouldn’t advise anybody to go anywhere indoors without one,” he said.
“I can see people’s frustrations, but we’ve learnt it the hard way and don’t wish it on anyone. I have pleaded with my friends to have the vaccine and I’ve managed to pull most of them around.”