Tears and trauma, lives transformed: how Covid-19 has affected the county
Paul Jeeves
Two years ago on Monday, Yorkshire found itself at the epicentre of the global Covid-19 pandemic after the first two cases of the disease in the UK were confirmed in the region. Since then, the virus has had an unprecedented effect on everyday life, while more than 155,000 people with Covid have died. Head of News
spoke to some of those who have been affected by Covid-19, including a nurse and a woman who lost a loved one.
WHILE STANDING in a busy intensive care unit surrounded by her colleagues tending to Covid-19 patients, it was a moment that was to define the traumas that Sinead Laverty had endured throughout the past nine months.
She felt the unmistakable swell of a panic attack take grip, leaving her unable to breathe properly and sobbing in the middle of the ward at St James’s Hospital, in Leeds.
Taken to a side room by one of her managers, Miss
Laverty realised that the horrors of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic had taken a toll that she had not fully comprehended.
The 38-year-old, who has been working as a critical care nurse in the NHS for nine years, said: “It was a moment when the dam simply broke and my emotions flooded out.
“I was on auto-pilot, and I only realised months later the impact that Covid-19 had had on my life.”
Monday marks the second anniversary of the first two confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the UK after a Chinese student from the University of York was visited in the city by his mother, who had travelled from the Wuhan province in China where the disease originated.
The impact of the pandemic has been without precedent in modern history, with a societal shift that is being felt two years on as coronavirus still remains an ever-present threat.
The profound impact of the disease has, however, perhaps been most keenly felt amongst the frontline workers in the NHS, who have faced the biggest challenges of their careers to cope with the impact of the virus.
Miss Laverty, who lives in Bramley in Leeds with her partner Dan Platts, knows only too well the lasting effects that the pandemic has brought.
A month before her panic attack in January last year, she had been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event and often associated with veterans of war zones.
A study by King’s College London published last year found that nearly half of intensive care unit and anaesthetic staff surveyed reported symptoms consistent with a probable diagnosis of PTSD – severe depression, anxiety or problem drinking.
For Miss Laverty, her diagnosis was to lead to a dramatic shift in her career.
She said: “Physically I was able to do the job, but mentally there was no way that I could carry on.
“I did feel some real guilt, as I was leaving behind colleagues who were still having to deal with so many Covid patients.
“But I had to re-evaluate just what I was able to do, otherwise the reality was that I would have to leave my job and the NHS behind.”
The moment of clarity came while Miss Laverty was watching a news bulletin at the end of January last year which was detailing the latest update on the roll-out of the vaccine programme.
Miss Laverty spoke to her managers at the Leeds NHS Teaching Hospitals Trust, and was seconded to the vaccine centre that had been established at Leeds United’s ground, Elland Road. With the help of sessions with a psychologist, Miss Laverty is now preparing to return to the role she had begun in 2018 as a nurse on the high dependency unit at St James Hospital.
She said: “My managers and colleagues have been so supportive, as has Dan and my friends and family. Being able to talk about all that has happened has been a game-changer, and it is helping me through all of this.”
The past year has been dominated by the hope that the vaccine programme has given for the nation to claw its way out of the Covid-19 crisis.
A total of 138m doses have been administered in the UK, meaning 48.3m people – or 71.8 per cent of the population – are now fully vaccinated.
Among them is Amal Podder, a 69-year-old former maths lecturer who had to shield throughout 2020 as he was deemed clinically vulnerable due to a host of medical issues including diabetes and high blood pressure.
Mr Podder, who lives in Roundhay in Leeds with his 42-year-old wife Lakshmi Chowdhury and their children, Anaya, 11, and Angshuman, eight, was given his first dose of a vaccine on January 20 last year.
Mr Podder, who came to the UK from his native Bangladesh in 1979 to study in London, said: “It really has transformed my life, and I feel very lucky to have been given the opportunities through the vaccine.”
But for the families of the 155,000 people in the UK who have lost their lives due to Covid-19, the vaccine programme arrived too late to potentially save the lives of their loved ones.
Jayne Taylor-Broadbent’s wife, Julie, a former social care worker, died aged 49 on May 8, 2020, four days after being admitted to Hull Royal Infirmary with a burst ulcer and then developing Covid-19 symptoms.
Mrs Taylor-Broadbent, 56, a supervisor at a food production firm in Hull, is a member of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families
for Justice group, which is campaigning for a full inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic.
She said: “The doctors and nurses who have been dealing with Covid-19 for the past two years have shown so much bravery while caring for patients like Julie.
“I just hope that they have the strength to be able to carry on as this pandemic is far from over, and more people will lose their lives to this awful disease.”
It was a moment when the dam broke and my emotions flooded out. Sinead Laverty was working as a critical care nurse.