AS THE government confirms that NHS staff will now be tested for COVID-19, we find out what it’s really like for those working on the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak.

Eve*, an A&E nurse at a hospital in the East Midlands, is one of thousands risking her life to save others and stop the spread of COVID-19. With each shift, the mother-of-three has to carefully balance taking care of patients and safeguarding her own health. It’s by no means an easy task, especially with limited resources.

The people Eve treats can come into the hospital for a multitude of reasons and may not be displaying symptoms of COVID-19 but could be spreading the virus.

“Patients will come in who don’t really have any symptoms and then they might later on develop a temperature but they’ve come in with something else,” Eve told The Voice. “This is why the government is saying to people to stay home because sometimes you do not even show the symptoms until days later.”

Eve has had multiple experiences of treating patients for other medical emergencies who tested positive for the coronavirus after she had been exposed to them. She recalled one patient who was admitted with vomiting and diarrhoea and later tested positive for COVID-19. Staff treating him had been taking some precautions – wearing gloves and aprons – but not masks because of his initial lack of coronavirus symptoms.

It’s incidents like this which drive home the need for NHS staff to have access to testing. While the government’s announcement that this will now be put in place is overdue and welcome, with previous issues with supplies of other essential kit, there are doubts that all those in need will be catered for. “One of the hospitals I worked at, they had literally run out of swabs so then I guess it’s all to do with supplies as well, and we only swabbed those who we suspected,” Eve said.

With not only nurses and doctors but porters, cleaners and other vital healthcare workers in need and in receipt of masks, management had sought to ration supplies of these too.

“I don’t kiss anybody, I don’t hug anybody”

“Before, we were told those surgical masks, we were told you can wear it continuously until it becomes moist but we refused,” Eve said, referring to what she and colleagues were told by management.

Now, she wears a fit-tested mask but only once she is dealing with a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patient.

She said the advanced equipment makes her feel safe but she has concerns about how staff remain unprotected when caring for unidentified COVID-19 cases – and so do her colleagues.

“Colleagues at work obviously are really scared to come into work or get scared when we have a confirmed case…always checking, ‘did I see that patient, how long was I with that patient’ – people are literally panicking,” Eve said.

News that two ears, nose and throat medics were placed in critical care after contracting the virus from their patients fuelled fears, and calls for frontline staff to be provided with PPE and to be regularly tested.

It’s something that will not only make Eve feel more protected but make her safer too. In the meantime she wears just her surgical mask when interacting with patients who are not showing are not suspected of having the virus.

“I started coughing like a dry cough and I got really scared and I was like, ‘OK, I cannot be near the kids’”

The outbreak has changed the lives of almost every individual in the world. With countries imposing travel bans, introducing lockdowns and economies dipping to historic lows.

Health scare

For Eve, there have been dramatic changes to her daily routine. “I go through the back and I literally undress outside in my garden without actually getting inside the house. If our neighbours are able to see – it’s crazy. But I cannot take any risks at all. As I come in I go straight into our bathroom because we’ve got separate from the kids’ bathroom. I don’t kiss anybody, I don’t hug anybody.”

Not knowing if she’s carrying the virus, mainly due to a lack of testing, means Eve has implemented heightened precautions.

Despite changing out of her scrubs at work, Eve has still adopted these stringent measures such are her fears about putting her family in danger. And she’s had a scare or two already. She tells me she took time off work due to a cough – NHS staff are being told to self isolate for 14 days if they display coronavirus symptoms.

“I started coughing like a dry cough and I got really scared and I was like, ‘OK, I cannot be near the kids’. My husband had to leave our bedroom and sleep downstairs just in case.”

During our interview she coughs intermittently and a few days later she tells me she’s not been feeling good and is to be tested for COVID-19.

Her children are too young to grasp the complexities of what’s happening.

“They don’t understand at all but, however, when I was unwell they could not understand to stay away from mummy because we didn’t know if mummy had it or not,” Eve said.

As well as working shifts at the hospital, Eve is also studying and homeschooling her children alongside her husband. Her mother, who began staying with the family before the lockdown was imposed and social distancing measures were introduced, is also helping out with childcare. It’s been a great help for Eve whose husband is unable to work from home and is not eligible for sick pay but she admits it hasn’t been easy.

“I can’t do anything during the day and then by the time the day’s finished I’m really tired and I want to go to sleep and then in the night we’re waking up with the baby,” she said.

Random acts of kindness

However she’s wholly appreciative of the support she’s receiving from her family – and strangers too. Incidents of NHS staff going to the supermarket after long shifts only to be met with empty shelves have been shared widely on social media and Eve is all too familiar with the experience.

“I got mad, really upset, the fact that I had to finish my night shift and go shopping and I still ended up not getting the stuff that I needed for my family. My kids love pasta, I could not find pasta anywhere,” Eve said.

But thanks to the kindness of strangers, Eve has been able to feed her family with the things they love and need.

Anybody, whatever race, whatever ethnicity, you can get COVID-19″

“We are so grateful for the people who came in and basically brought shopping to us. We’d just be at work and then literally we’d have loads of bags delivered to us.

“It was like massive bags of pasta, even including dog food, potatoes, vegetables, tinned food – you name it. So I was able to get pasta that day from the delivery we had at the hospital.”

But while coronavirus outbreak has encouraged random acts of kindness, it has also seen the spread of harmful rumours. One such rumour is that black people are immune to the virus.

In response to the claims, Eve said: “I think people really should take this seriously because a lot of people are not taking it seriously.

“When they say, ‘oh black people they don’t catch it or whatever,’ I just think that’s not true because they can and it’s like when they say young people don’t get it, no, young people do get it as well but it’s to do with one’s immune system.”

She added: “I just think people need to take it seriously and understand that anybody, whatever race, whatever ethnicity, you can get it.”

*Name changed to protect identity.