A SENIOR nurse who was in a ten-day “locked-in arrangement” at a care home during the pandemic has told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that she felt God’s “tangible presence” throughout.
The Revd Charlotte Hudd, an Assistant Curate in the West Wight Team Ministry, in Portsmouth diocese, was ordained deacon last year, having been a registered nurse since 2009. She spoke at 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 new strain of the virus in January 2021, she was the “last nurse standing” in the care home in which she worked: 95 per cent of the home’s staff were off work.
“The days leading up to that day, I’d started to feel panic and fear rising, as people were dropping off,” she said. “Every time a staff member tested positive and had to go home, I just remember, like, a little piece of me would be lost each time, [thinking] how are we going to look after these people?”
In her witness statement, written on 30 April and published yesterday, Ms Hudd said that she helped to “24/7 clinical care for around 20 residents with complex needs or Covid-19 and nearing the end of their lives”.
Two carers were “finally” sent from a London agency to help Ms Hudd at the care home. “This was their first job looking after other humans . . . but they did really well, and what they did bring was their presence, the things that humans so need.”
Her statement went on to say that, “aside from the fatigue and the fear and stuff, it became a real place of love. The sort of . . . mixed faiths, mixed cultures, all living in this house together, it was strangely an awesome privilege amongst all that.”
During the infection spike in January 2021, Ms Hudd was “adamant families should have a timely visit” to see their loved ones for the final time. “Risk assessments were made on a case-by-case basis,” she said. These were “the most sterile end-of-life visits I have done in my career”, she added.
Some staff members were “initially uneasy” about her decision, but she explained to them that, since funeral directors were allowed into the home, “there was no difference in safety to allowing a family member in to say their last goodbyes.”
She continued: “I recall a resident dying two hours after their loved ones came to visit, 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 forms of PPE in front of care-home residents who had dementia and neurological conditions caused “a lot of distress” and was “like a horror story” for them. “They rely a lot more on [faces] to communicate,” she said. “We’d even try and draw lips sometimes on [the masks], but I don’t think that really worked.”
She recalled that residents were “tearful [and] lonely”. This affected the staff, “because they care for these people, but also more time was invested in settling [the residents], which is 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 rely on the daily 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 home for two weeks. When she returned, she “put on a brand of mask with a distinctive smell and was teleported back in time to living in the home. 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, and then 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 always felt directed towards spiritual care,” she said in her witness statement.
The Covid-19 Inquiry continues.
