Nurse 'still shudders' over memories of Covid

In October 2020 Liverpool's Covid rates were rising at a terrifying pace and the city was about to become the first area in England to enter the strictest of the government's new three-tier system of restrictions.

The country had already seen one lockdown beginning early that year in March, with restrictions that had been gradually eased over the summer but, in many areas, the beginning of autumn had seen a sharp jump in cases of the virus.

By then, local hospitals were on the verge of being overwhelmed and on the eve of the new lockdown staff from the Royal Liverpool's critical care unit appeared on BBC News urging the public not to have one final night out.

Voices muffled behind masks and layers of PPE, they spoke of their dismay and disbelief that it was all happening again, and their fears for the weeks ahead.

"This is not sustainable. This just isn't sustainable," nurse Louise Lightfoot told the camera.

Four and a half years on, looking back at that TV report, Louise gives a little shudder.

"Seeing it now brings back the memories of working in that intense environment and reminds me of how resilient we were," she said.

"It was a very scary time – unprecedented. However, we came together and we worked together the best way we know how."

The pressure on critical care units became ever more intense as patient numbers increased.

"I think there was a lot of adrenaline pumping. A lot of us didn't really stop to process how stressful it was at the time," said Louise.

But once that adrenaline had ebbed, many critical care staff around the country struggled to process what they had gone through and seen.

At the beginning of the pandemic in particular, the death rate in intensive care units had been more than twice the normal figure.

Staff also struggled with the fact that relatives were unable to visit patients until the end - and sometimes not at all.

Louise said some of her colleagues had ended up with post-traumatic stress disorder and others had left nursing altogether.

"The aftermath just impacted too much on their own lives so they just came away and did something completely different," she says.

"I just think the critical care environment is quite a stressful environment anyway day to day so I think with Covid on top of that, the immense pressure people were feeling was just too much for them to carry on day to day."

Louise still works on the unit but changed her job to work as a staff trainer, a fact she partly puts down to having worked through Covid.

She says she uses the pandemic and examples from it during her teaching sessions but other than that: "We don't tend to talk that much about it. I think it's because people don't want to think about it."

The Royal Liverpool moved to a new hospital building in 2022.

The old building, which sits opposite the new, is currently being torn down. Louise said the move had made it easier for staff to break with the past.

"They don't want to look back at that. I think the staff just want to look forward now rather than back."

But some changes made during the pandemic have continued.

Infection control, always important in critical care, was tightened during Covid and remains so now.

Louise said staff were now more vigilant in asking patients' relatives to wear masks if they had a cough or a cold.

"Now we are thankfully in a place where we can put it behind us but also I just want people to be aware," she said.

"Hopefully we will never see anything like this again in our lifetime but we can never say never. We don't want to see anything on that scale again."

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