Covid-19 horrors remain five years on as hero carers recall dying patients' Zoom calls

Britain's army of carers were the heroes in its hour of need as the country battled an unprecedented global pandemic.

Five years on from Covid-19, the today remembers those and social care workers who made the ultimate sacrifice after catching the deadly new virus while looking after us. Others on the frontline went to work and put themselves in harm’s way every day to save lives and were left with lasting Long Covid symptoms and trauma.

Our carers also made many people’s final moments more bearable, comforting the dying when family members couldn’t be with them.

As our NHS - weakened by a decade of austerity - creaked under the strain, nurses and doctors did their level best in appalling conditions. Many still carry the mental scars of ‘moral injury’ as lack of resources, including hospital beds, meant they often couldn’t give the care they knew their patients deserved.

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Care home workers dealing with death every day faced impossible dilemmas on how to care for vulnerable people with the virus while preventing others from catching it.

Care home worker Jacky Kitchen worked at Melbury Court in Durham which saw 28 residents die in just two months as the virus went through them "like wildfire" at the start of the pandemic. Jacky, 63, told the Mirror: "It was horrendous losing so many people. We described it as like a living hell. These were people we had known and looked after for years.

"On one shift I started and was told we had five patients on imminent ‘end of life’. We lost the first one at 7.55am and the rest during that day.”

The Government decided to discharge untested elderly patients, many carrying the virus, from back into care homes with devastating consequences.

The outbreak at Melbury Court in the first wave saw only 20 of its 82 residents escape infection. Undertakers started to arrive dressed not in their usual dark suits but in hazardous materials suits. Staff fears for their residents, many of whom had dementia, led to constant handwashing and their hands became raw. Despite this, carers were still “dropping like flies” and getting sick.

Jack told how she and other staff would work a 60-hour week to fill rota gaps. She said: “As we had so many dying we had Sky and News camped outside as we came in to work. Families wanted to visit but they weren’t allowed so they would come to the bedroom windows on the ground floor to wave to their relatives but they wouldn’t let us open a window.

“I was doing the Zoom calls with residents and their families when they were going through end of life and, I’ll be honest, I cried as much as anyone. I’ll always remember this one resident and his daughter was on the call and she said ‘I just want to come in and hold his hand but I daren’t’. I told her to put her hand on the screen and I put his hand on the screen and we just sat there and cried.”

During much of the pandemic, there were chronic shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) which meant many nurses, doctors, porters and volunteers lost their lives. Nurses resorted to wearing bin bags to protect themselves at Northwick Park Hospital in London.

The growing number of carers to lose their lives included a pregnant nurse who died before she could meet her daughter. Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong, aged 28, had been a nurse for five years at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital before her death on 12 April 2020.

Her inquest heard she "felt pressured" to return to work despite being heavily pregnant. Mary was admitted to hospital on 7 April, having tested positive for Covid-19 two days previously. Despite her death, it was reported at the time her baby daughter was delivered successfully and a hospital trust spokeswoman said she was doing "very well".

Nurse Andrew Ekene Nwankwo, 46 died on 16 May 2020 - the same day Prime Minister announced everyone should “stop non-essential contact and travel”. Andrew had already spent five weeks on a ventilator in intensive care. The Guardian reported that his brother, Tochukwu, said he had tried to buy his own personal protective equipment online. A spokesman for Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex, said there had never been a lack of PPE.

Elsie Sazuze was a care home nurse who also worked at New Cross Hospital, in Wolverhampton. She reportedly fell ill at home, in Birmingham, before being taken to hospital. Her husband Ken told how she rang him before she was put on a ventilator. He said: "She started telling me, 'Ken, if I don't come back, be strong. I love you, be strong for the kids'.”

GP Poornima Nair, 56, died after catching the virus in May 2020 and then spending over six weeks on a life support machine. The family doctor from County Durham was not thought to have had any underlying health issues. Her practice manager Sarah Westgarth said: “Her heart was with the NHS and what she could do to help her patients and the staff.”

Jacky described the fear frontline carers felt in the early days of the pandemic. She said: "I had my daughter and young granddaughter living with me at the time and I was potentially bringing this virus home with me. We didn't know what we were dealing with, whether you could bring it home on your skin or clothes. My granddaughter eventually got Covid and she was really poorly. I can’t say I didn’t bring it home with me.”

As the UK went through the first wave of the pandemic the death toll of carers was clearly starting to show a disproportionate number of people from black and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. Many of them came to the UK from other countries to work for the NHS.

Older people were more vulnerable to the virus and the growing list of carers losing their lives included many who were retired but returned to work for the NHS to help Britain in its moment of crisis. Britons rallied and an army of volunteers came forward to support the NHS while a new ritual emerged where families stood on their doorsteps and balconies to clap for the carers doing their best to keep us safe.

The pandemic came after Tory austerity policies had cut hospital beds by 8.3% in England between 2010/11 and 2019/20. The average daily total of available beds fell from 153,725 to 140,978. Britain had a lower ratio of hospital beds relative to its population size compared to almost all other developed nations. The average number of beds per 1,000 people in the UK was 2.4 in 2021 compared to 7.8 in Germany.

Mother-of-one Lisa Cooke was a paediatric nurse at Great Ormond Street children’s hospital but answered the NHS call and volunteered to be transferred to adult intensive care units across London after the pandemic started. Lisa, 51, said: I knew I was putting myself, my husband and daughter at greater risk of Covid, but I wanted to give back to my community.

“My experience there was tough. Safe staffing levels went out the window. I often had two patients to care for, sometimes three or four if we were covering breaks. At times, the hospital had to use basic theatre ventilators. I was shocked at the very basic care we were providing.”

Lisa avoided catching the virus despite working “flat out” during the first two waves, but then fell ill in October 2022 while on a hospital training day. She said: “As soon as I tested negative I went straight back to work – a day and then a night shift - but my body quickly went into ‘you can’t do this’ mode.

"To this day my heart rate is very erratic, my sight is affected and I suffer from fatigue, brain fog and memory loss. It’s taken over every aspect of my life. Over the last two years I have tried everything to get back to my job, but I’ve eventually had to accept that my career is over and ill-health retirement is my only option.”

After a long fight, Lisa finally secured Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) with the help of the Royal College of Nursing. Long Covid still is not recognised as a condition under IIDB. Lisa said: “It has been an almighty struggle to get any support from the government. There are many nurses that have been abandoned by the government as Long Covid still isn’t recognised. That has to change.”

*The union is campaigning for care workers to get full pay from the first day they are off sick.