Tales from a West London COVID Centre
What's it like to be working at a hospital on New Years Eve? On my cycle to St Charles’ Hospital in Notting Hill, I indulged in a few fancifully festive forecasts… Doctors and nurses embracing for choruses of Auld Lang Syne. NHS patients pouring out (saline) libations for Matt Hancock. Perhaps even a surprise hospital visit from the royal family or failing that a reality TV star like Prince Harry or Prince Andrew.
But the first zap of the thermometer gun heralded that I might need to revise my expectations. First, my job was administering COVID-19 vaccines in the midst of a global pandemic. No embracing, no toasts and the sort of drugs we were shotting are actually good for you. Secondly, my life is not a subplot in a Richard Curtis film...and Hugh Grant has private health insurance anyway.
At 9am we received a briefing and ‘Lateral Flow’ tests. That distinctive first-day-of-school awkwardness was synthesized via the socially distanced mixing of veteran GPs, medical students and volunteering family members. We were told that in the 12 hours since our last cohort of octogenarians were vaccinated, the government had cancelled most of the one-month-on follow up appointments. I silently winced. I had spent the last two days grappling with battered diaries and dog-eared paperwork to arrange these second doses. I took little consolation from the thought that this news would disappoint the patients far more than me.
Poised for the first shot of the day, we took up positions in the vaccination hall. At the entrance was my nemesis, the plexiglass reception box. I can only assume that the box is meant to double up as a shelter for impending nuclear armageddon. The ‘covid secure™’ plastic screening was so impenetrable that I felt like I had been captured as an exhibit for an absurdist aquarium. Many elderly patients are hard of hearing at the best of times so adding masks meant that communication was reduced to bellowed fragments of the NATO phonetic alphabet. I considered boring some holes in the plastic, but unfortunately had left my 50 cal. assault rifle at home that day.
Beyond the reception were 20 partitioned ‘pods’ where the vaccinating took place. It was a real privilege to meet such a range of elderly people. Retired mayors, majors, major movie stars and everything in between. 105 year-olds who were twice as sharp as their carers and relishing their first foray out of the house since March. A highlight was recognising a few of my friends' grandparents roll in. Enforcing the one-way-system was especially hard. I had to stop myself from asking patients ‘are you on your way out?’ after one gentleman responded with the first lines from ‘do not go gentle into that good night.’
The vaccinations went smoothly despite two semi-frenzied peaks of activity. The lunchtime surge was close to overwhelming us. Some patients arrived several hours early whilst others arrived whole days late. Simultaneously, the reception had to repel hoards of ineligible punters trying to snag a spare shot. These attempts ranged from the fair to the flagrant. It is honestly hard to deny a 79 year old high risk carer on the grounds that we needed enough vaccine for all the booked patients. It was less hard to turn away a positively athletic 45-year old whose lycra’d limbs suggested he had dropped into the hospital half-way through an ironman.
Other vaccinees made more daring aesthetic statements. Many had donned their finest gloves, furs (no mink) and designer sunglasses under the pretence of COVID security. After one grand-dame tottered forth in Balenciaga and a pair of Christian Laboutins, I remembered that this was the first time many of them had used the NHS.
At the end of the day we were able to tally the ‘Did Not Attends’ to calculate how many doses we could give to frontline health workers. Some of the staff were vaccinated on the spot and sunk into the rest chairs having voluntarily foregone breaks to reduce waiting times. Lucky local doctors were also called in. This is how none of the vaccine went to waste, even though it did mean that one colleague stayed late into the night to administer the final doses.
So New Years Eve was slightly different this year. Yes I was disappointed by the dearth of government procured champagne and celebrity cameos. Yes, I concede that the donated meals and generous volunteers were an excellent substitute. But I still certainly felt something of the contact high you get at a really good New Years Eve party. That instant camaraderie found between near-strangers. Collective effervescence followed by collective exhaustion. And as ever...the optimism that next year might be better.
