It’s been 20 years since
‘‘
TWENTY years ago many Filipino nurses came to West Wales to fill vacancies at hospitals in Carmarthenshire and further afield.
Over the years a strong Filipino community has rooted itself in the area and more than 80% of those nurses that came here have settled, started families and are happily part of society.
This month marks two decades since they arrived and made their mark on healthcare locally, none more so than over the past year in the face of the biggest health crisis in a century: the coronavirus pandemic.
There are about 200,000 Filipinos in the UK, and 18,500 of them are in the NHS, according to House of Commons library data from 2019.
Among them is intensive care charge nurse Jefferson De Vera, 47, who lives in Pemberton Park, Llanelli, with his wife Rowena and their three daughters Jenna, 17, Ella, 13, and Pauline, 10.
Jefferson has been on the frontline of the pandemic since the first Covid case at the town’s Prince Philip Hospital in March last year.
He said it had been the “most difficult year of his career” and was struck down with the virus himself. He isolated at home while he fought it.
But just how did young nurses find themselves moving more than halfway across the globe to work in a town, county and country that they hadn’t even heard of?
Jefferson’s story starts while he was home in the Philippines on a monthlong holiday in 2001 and he spotted a small advert in an alleyway in Manila.
He lived in Tarlac, a province located in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines.
Jefferson said: “I was working in intensive care at a big military hospital in Saudi Arabia and was on holiday back home when I saw a recruitment advert for nurses needed in the UK. It mentioned London and so I thought, ‘That’s where I want to go.’”
He resigned his post in Saudi Arabia and flew to Heathrow Airport where a bus filled with fellow Filipino medics set off for what he thought was a part of London.
Looking back now, Jefferson can laugh at what happened: “The bus journey was getting longer and longer and I asked where we were going and the reply was Carmarthenshire.
“So I asked, ‘What part of London is that?’ ‘It’s not in London,’ they said, ‘we are going to Wales.’
“I had never heard of Wales as in the Philippines growing up I just didn’t know, all I knew was England.” He added: “Four hours later we arrived in Llanelli and others also went on to Carmarthen to Glangwili Hospital.
“My daughters are all in education here, so at one time where I may have planned to return home to the Philippines, now I think Llanelli is my home, it’s home for my daughters and I have dual citizenship.”
No-one could have imagined as we approached the tail end of 2019 what was around the corner.
As 2020 started, the coronavirus swept across the world and arrived on our shores in February, and by March we were plunged into the nightmare.
For medics such as Jefferson, it was to be the most testing time of his career.
We were all made to feel very welcome and still do to this day
- Jefferson De Vera
He said: “We first started hearing about the virus in December 2019 and how it was affecting China.
“By March we had our first patients in intensive care in Llanelli and it has been the most difficult year of my career.
“We have learned a lot about the virus since last March, the whole of the NHS has, but there were hard times last year as we got to grips with just how the virus affected patients,
and affected each patient differently.
“The second wave was tough as we are such a small intensive care unit here in Llanelli, but everyone supported each other and that’s our job, always has been, to care for patients.
“To try and comfort them and hopefully get them well again, but that hasn’t always been possible in this pandemic, lives have been lost.”
Battling Covid-19 himself at the start of the pandemic, Jefferson said: “I was at home, and I thought I was going to die.
“I felt so ill, but I kept drinking hot fluids and eventually I recovered.”
Jefferson said that if another wave hits he feels the knowledge gained in the past year has put healthcare professionals on a good footing, but like everyone he hopes that wave doesn’t arrive.
Another Filipino family who have settled in Llanelli over the past 20 years is the Chua family.
Dennis and Roselle moved in 2001. Dennis was on the same flight and bus as Jefferson, while Roselle joined him eight months later with their two young children, Kevin, who is now 28, and Colin, now aged 23.
The couple also have a 13-year-old daughter, Kaycee.
Dennis no longer practises nursing but Roselle still works at Prince Philip Hospital.
Roselle said her role as a health care support worker meant she has also been at the frontline of the pandemic.
“It’s been very frightening sometimes,” she said, “times when I haven’t wanted to go to work, but it’s what we do.
“It’s been hard seeing colleagues get the virus
and also trying to help families of those we are caring for,” she added.
Roselle, 49, works on a respiratory ward and is very often the only link between a Covid patient and their families.
She said: “When the pandemic started our ward became a Covid ward and a heartbreaking part of my job has been to be the link between a patient and loved ones by using an ipad.”
Turning to life in Llanelli, it was never meant to be a long-term stay, she said.
“The Filipino community across Llanelli and those at Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen and in Swansea hospitals are like one big family.”
For now, the Chua and De Vera families continue to balance life working on the frontline and enjoying life in the town they now call home, Llanelli.