Heartbreaking ...those who died doing their duty
AT least 950 NHS and social care workers have died from coronavirus in the last year – including 167 nurses and 102 nursing assistants.
Among the heartbreaking deaths was that of pregnant nurse Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong, 28, who died on April 12.
She contracted the virus along with pneumonia and died after her baby Mary was delivered by emergency Caesarean section at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital.
It is understood that Ms Agyapong’s father Stephen had died with suspected Covid-19 just two weeks earlier.
In May, tributes were paid to “wonderful” nurse and mum Vivian Chikwan Ng, 28, whose job was to take blood samples at North Manchester General Hospital.
Wonderful
Among the most recent deaths was that of Linda Udeagbala, 60, who died on February 3 after inspiring four of her five children to work for the NHS.
Linda, from Croydon, south London, was carrying out face-to-face patient work at Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust.
On February 5, “wonderful, caring” nurse Estrella Catalan died with Covid-19 in the hospital she had worked at for nearly two decades.
Estrella, 52, was being treated at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, where she was an emergency department staff nurse.
Just two days later it was revealed that “cheerful, hardworking and kind” nurse Chris Buckingham had died.
He joined North Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group last March and was well-known in the health and social care community.