Sophie May-Carter's story

Sophie May-Carter, Assistant Theatre Practitioner - Surgical Care

“I’ve been an Assistant Theatre Practitioner with the Hands and Plastics team for four years now. Prior to that I worked on the wards at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Working in the Hands and Plastics specialty, we’re used to seeing patients with fractures, nerve damage or in need of plastic surgery. Very rarely are these patients facing death.

“The whole of the Hands and Plastics surgical theatres team was redeployed during COVID-19. The theatres closed, our priority patients awaiting urgent surgery were treated at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, and most of us were redeployed to ITU to help care for patients who were seriously unwell with COVID-19. Overnight as a team we went from dealing with patients who were in for a surgical procedure and then would go home to their families to dealing with patients who might not wake up again. It was a huge shock to the system for a lot of colleagues.

“Not only that, but our day jobs involve methodically preparing our theatres for surgery so that the anaesthetists and surgeons can safely carry out their jobs. In ITU we were providing direct, hands-on personal care to patients – washing them, providing eye, mouth and tracheostomy care, and checking for skin damage. For some colleagues, this was culturally challenging as they had not signed up to do a job where they would be providing such intimate care.

“I went from working in a really tight knit team to working with people I’d never met before day in, day out. So many staff were shielding or off work with COVID-19, so it was a case of if you had a pulse and could help, you did. I caught COVID whilst in ITU so had to have time off and that was really hard – knowing what was going on at the hospital whilst I was at home recovering and unable to help.

“One of the most difficult parts of the pandemic was not knowing what the outcome was for so many of the patients we cared for whilst being redeployed. ITU was so busy – it was like going into a burning fire. One of my colleagues actually tried to keep a list of people he had cared for in ITU who he knew had survived. This list helped him keep going despite the exhaustion.

“The first wave was extremely challenging but the second wave was harder emotionally as there were patients in their 20s and 30s, around my age, in ITU beds.

“Despite it being the toughest year of my life and despite feeling really out of my depth at times, I remember looking around at ITU and thinking we are all working together here like a big, complex machine. Everyone is doing something that is making a difference. I will never forget the way colleagues from all different specialties across the Trust pulled together to care for patients. My colleagues in Hands and Plastics and I played a part in the recovery of many patients and despite being tired beyond belief we didn’t stop. If nothing else, we’ve definitely come out of this stronger than we were before.”