A SENIOR nurse who was in a ten-day “locked-in arrangement” at a care home throughout the pandemic has told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that she felt God’s “tangible presence” throughout.
The Revd Charlotte Hudd, an Assistant Curate within the West Wight Team Ministry, in Portsmouth diocese, was ordained deacon last 12 months, having been a registered nurse since 2009. She spoke on the Covid-19 Inquiry on Thursday, on behalf of the Royal College of Nursing.
She explained to the Inquiry’s Chair, Baroness Hallett, and a counsel to the Inquiry, Natasha Shotunde, that, during an outbreak of a recent strain of the virus in January 2021, she was the “last nurse standing” within the care home through which she worked: 95 per cent of the house’s staff were off work.
“The days leading as much as that day, I’d began to feel panic and fear rising, as people were dropping off,” she said. “Every time a staff member tested positive and needed to go home, I just remember, like, a bit of piece of me could be lost every time, [thinking] how are we going to take care of these people?”
In her witness statement, written on 30 April and published yesterday, Ms Hudd said that she helped to “24/7 clinical look after around 20 residents with complex needs or Covid-19 and nearing the tip of their lives”.
Two carers were “finally” sent from a London agency to assist Ms Hudd on the care home. “This was their first job taking care of other humans . . . but they did rather well, and what they did bring was their presence, the things that humans so need.”
Her statement went on to say that, “apart from the fatigue and the fear and stuff, it became an actual place of affection. The type of . . . mixed faiths, mixed cultures, all living on this house together, it was strangely an awesome privilege amongst all that.”
During the infection spike in January 2021, Ms Hudd was “adamant families must have a timely visit” to see their family members for the ultimate time. “Risk assessments were made on a case-by-case basis,” she said. These were “essentially the most sterile end-of-life visits I even have done in my profession”, she added.
Some staff members were “initially uneasy” about her decision, but she explained to them that, since funeral directors were allowed into the house, “there was no difference in safety to allowing a member of the family in to say their last goodbyes.”
She continued: “I recall a resident dying two hours after their family members came visiting, and I remember thanking God for helping me hold my nerve and allowing them in.”
During her testimony to the Inquiry on Thursday, Ms Hudd said that wearing face masks and other types of PPE in front of care-home residents who had dementia and neurological conditions caused “a number of distress” and was “like a horror story” for them. “They rely quite a bit more on [faces] to speak,” she said. “We’d even attempt to draw lips sometimes on [the masks], but I don’t think that actually worked.”
She recalled that residents were “tearful [and] lonely”. This affected the staff, “because they look after these people, but in addition more time was invested in settling [the residents], which may be very difficult when staffing resources are already shrinking quickly.”
Questions about visiting restrictions and the impact on residents and families were raised, Ms Hudd said in her witness statement. The sector “was not given advance warning of any changes that were being announced”. She would depend on the each day addresses given by then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and tried to “understand the implications for us and our residents in real time”. Consequently, her relationships with the residents’ families became “strained”.
In mid-January 2021, Ms Hudd tested positive for Covid-19 at work and isolated at her own residence for 2 weeks. When she returned, she “placed on a brand of mask with a particular smell and was teleported back in time to living in the house. It was so difficult to process.”
She “sought support from [her] faith community, family and other nurse colleagues”, she said. Due to having long Covid and PTSD, she reduced her hours, after which made the “tough decision” to resign from care-home nursing. In October 2023, Ms Hudd gave up her nursing registration.
“Even from my initial nurse training, I had at all times felt directed towards spiritual care,” she said in her witness statement.
The Covid-19 Inquiry continues.
