Heartbeat: Caring for our elderly patients during COVID-19

July 28, 2020

Care, compassion and kindness have been three buzzwords that have been ringing through our hospitals ever since COVID-19 came to our doors. And whilst an unprecedented healthcare crisis unfolded across the world, colleagues continued to come to work, ready to don their PPE and care for their patients.

To find out more about how colleagues at Sandwell dealt with COVID-19, Heartbeat caught up with Consultant Geriatrician Grace Shorthouse. Sharing her experience, she said: “Elderly care was one of the first wards to become ‘hot’, so the team had to adapt very quickly to working in a COVID positive environment. We needed to get very familiar with our PPE and establish correct areas for donning/doffing. It was a real challenge to be able to communicate with our patients – many of whom have cognitive problems and trouble hearing and seeing. We had to be able to think on our feet and use different resources to help get our messages across to patients.

“Although many of our clinics were quickly converted to telephone clinics, this posed its challenges as it can be quite tricky when you are trying to assess things like the neurological symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. However, patients were often grateful that we were going the extra mile to ensure they remained well looked after and safe during the pandemic, even if it did mean some of our assessments were slightly limited.”

She added: “My colleagues have been wonderful! A lot of people were quite fearful, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, and we had contact with a lot of very frail patients that did not survive. This was a very stressful time so we all made an extra special effort to be kind to each other and talk through how we were feeling. There was a lot of camaraderie and team spirit. We made an extra effort to celebrate the small victories, including a PPE themed birthday cake for one of the consultants on the ward. We had

Haiku poetry competitions, sunflower growing competitions and a few (socially distanced) meals on the ward – it was a positive environment as we all went the extra mile to make things as pleasant as possible.

“Using WhatsApp to video conference with families has been a bit of a revelation. Most people would prefer to see their loved one in person, but some of the older patient relatives were often too frail to visit, even before COVID-19. I had one poorly patient who was dying and his wife requested we video conference with him so she could wish him a happy birthday and say goodbye one last time. He’d been unresponsive for almost a day, but once he heard her voice, he roused enough to open his eyes and tell her he loved her. It was a precious and beautiful moment – one that she was so thankful to have had. As sad as it was, it made my day!”

When asked about her tips for working through a pandemic, Dr Shorthouse said: “Take your time with PPE and with your patients. A smile goes a long way in communicating through a mask and visor. Keep a sense of humour, talk your concerns out with colleagues and drink plenty of fluids! (but go to the loo before you get dressed up in PPE!). Oh, and if you struggle with wearing masks, try sucking on a sweet underneath – that helped me relax and breathe a bit better!”