about 3 years ago

The critical care unit at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow has seen more Covid-19 patients than any other in Scotland.

Jen Dolan and the other specialist nurses have held the hands of many of them and they are still doing it.

"There is no feeling in the world like holding somebody's hand when their family can't be with them and their heart beats its last beat," she says.

"That's just one of the hardest things in this world, when somebody dies without their family." The nurses hold phones to the ears of unconscious patients, so that relatives can talk to them without getting any response.

They keep patients clean-shaven, update them on their favourite soaps, and pin cards and letters that may never be read around the bedsides, next to monitors and tubes.

Jen says she has always thought that nursing was a privilege but this past year has been harder than previous ones.

"We've had an awful lot of families come in - husbands and wives who haven't made it - and it's been incredibly hard not to have relatives in like we normally do," she says. The staff have become experienced in their treatment of the virus, but senior charge nurse Amanda Allan says the volume of patients has been overwhelming at times. pg

"It's just come in an absolute tidal wave of your sickest patients, whereas in normal circumstances there's a trickle," she says.

"They just kept coming and coming and coming. It was relentless and, as well as the Covid patients, particularly in the second wave, there was a huge influx of other patients requiring intensive care, very acutely ill from trauma, and post-operative patients."