The Experience of Covid from a Pharmacist's Perspective
First and foremost, I’d like to say that I am in no way, shape or form a writer. Just your standard hospital pharmacist. This is just me wanting you to share something important, and for you to face an uncomfortable truth.
When I was first asked to write for The Everyday about COVID-19 I didn’t really know where to begin and what to say. It has been quite overwhelming, and we’ve all had an important role to play in this pandemic - essential worker or not! When I sat down and really thought about the past 5 months, I couldn’t see anything other than people choking to death. Quite graphic I know.
As a black pharmacist it’s quite difficult to dissociate the virus from racism. BIPOC people statistically are dying at a greater rate at the hands of COVID and this is combined with direct negligence. A knowingly infected man spat at Belly Mujinga during her shift, serving the public as a key worker for TFL. She caught the virus and died a few short days after. Whatsmore, we are experiencing the continuous murder by our very own police forces, here and in the US. Both pandemics are resulting in us being unable to breathe.
Is it not enough that BIPOC fill up your hospitals to the brim and work tirelessly for you, staring COVID-19 directly in the face? Yet you seek us in the streets and kill us. There has been no justice for Belly Mujinga and no peace for her family. You dislike us and turn your back on us until we’re your doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and essential workers.
Prior to the pandemic, I would say I was indifferent to how the media portrayed me and my people. My friends are liberal so my feed was full of activism, information, and people standing up for what is right. I resigned myself to it and always thought that it didn't matter. But, I felt something change and click in me on the NHS’s 72nd birthday. I remember seeing such a lack of representation. I found myself thinking about the first few BIPOC doctors and nurses that we lost to COVID, who’s faces were plastered all over social media. Apparently, the UK’s heroes didn’t include them, it was only the Caucasian NHS staff.
Whatsmore, I felt tired and unheard. I saw people, some of which were my close friends, turn a blind eye, and seek comfort and sanctuary from our reality in their privilege. This didn’t affect them, so they needn’t talk about it.
The medical community recognised that BAME staff members were at a higher risk of contracting this virus - the papers and research is out there for you to see for yourself. My BAME colleagues and I had to participate in a risk assessment, but how do you keep your BAME staff members safe when they basically account for the majority of the team?
I don’t think those who work outside the healthcare sector will ever fully appreciate what we saw. Wards were closed off for weeks with elderly and frail people inside. With Intensive Care Units holding COVID positive patients only, at one point we didn’t know where the non-COVID patients would go. Patients were gradually cut off from their families whether they were COVID positive or not. We saw visiting hours change from 9am-9pm, to 3pm -4pm to nothing at all, except in cases where patients were reaching the last days of their lives. Even then they had to be in an Intensive or Dependency unit. Deep this: instead of being beside your loved one you are staring at them through a phone. Some of whom were unconscious and plugged up to ventilators. This all took a massive toll on our mental health. ITU staff were calling family members on a daily basis to give them updates. Nurses were assigned iPads so they could FaceTime relatives as a form of communication. I saw my BIPOC community cry for their lost ones, unable to say their farewells. A little while later white people were smiling back at us in celebration. Imagine carrying the physical and emotional burden of the UK healthcare on your shoulders to be massively unrepresented in the media, oh yeah, and a round of applause on Thursday evenings.
It was a slap in the face.
During this pandemic, it’s been made clear that as NHS staff, we don’t do our work for clout. We do it because our passion and care run deep. I sit here and think about the consultants, cleaners, and everyone in between. They silently got on with it. They didn’t complain. Were they scared? Terrified. So much so, many of them moved out of their homes to keep their children, partners, parents, and grandparents safe.
My NHS is African, Pakistani, Indian, Polish, Greek, Filipino, Persian and so much more. As long as people talk about this and uplift one another, we will no longer depend on news outlets or other sources of media to show the true colour of the NHS.
Written by Azza Tabidi
I’m a hospital pharmacist who came from very humble beginnings. I grew up in Slough and went to one of the more ghetto schools at the time haha. I blossomed in Brighton and came back home – to give back to those who raised me.