Manchester Evening News

NHS worker without son for 7 weeks to ‘play part’

- By SEAMUS MCDONNELL seamus.mcdonnell@men-news.co.uk @SeamusMEN

A HEROIC NHS worker had to spend seven weeks without her 11-year-old son so she could keep treating patients.

Neonatal ward clerk Lindsay Sargent wanted to continue working at the Royal Bolton Hospital to help newborn babies and mothers during the coronaviru­s pandemic.

But to keep her own son, Levi, safe from the virus, she made the tough decision to send him to live with her mother, who was at home on furlough leave.

It took seven weeks until the relaxation of lockdown rules for the family to finally be reunited.

“It was horrendous, it was heartbreak­ing,” Lindsay said of their time apart. “I slept better knowing when I was coming home from work that I wasn’t bringing anything home, I wasn’t going to hurt Levi, I wasn’t going to hurt my mum.

“A lot of people had the difficult decision over whether to come to work or stay at home, but I think sometimes when you are in this business, when you are in with the NHS, you have got to play your part.

“You feel like you want to play your part, so I did my bit, that’s how I looked at it.”

Hospital bosses were so grateful to Levi for letting his mum come to work that Lynne Barnes, divisional director of operations, even wrote him a letter to say thanks. And when Lindsay could finally see her son again, it was an emotional reunion.

“I cried my eyes out,” she said. “I am more proud of Levi for handling the situation and dealing with it and understand­ing why. I think that was really big. What the hospital did was really nice.

“Lynne Barnes wrote a letter thanking Levi personally for doing what he did, making that sacrifice. They also did a little card from her for him, saying thank-you.

“Little touches like that, it makes a difference when he has recognised. It was hard for me, but it was also hard for that little boy, so it was nice that he got that recognitio­n.”

The increasing pressure of the pandemic and the changing lockdown rules made life difficult for the staff at the neonatal unit in Bolton but Lindsay thanked her colleagues for their support throughout the crisis.

She added: “I really do feel like it is my second family, that’s what it is like, it is like a family unit and we all very supportive of one another. When somebody is having a bad day you pick them up. With the neonatal unit we just had to be really vigilant with it.”

 ??  ?? Lindsay Sargent with her son Levi
Lindsay Sargent with her son Levi

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