Consultant Sophie shares her appreciation of community kindness
Dr Sophie Edwards, a consultant in elderly medicine and clinical lead for older people’s services at The Royal London Hospital has brought some much-needed joy to her team through community acts of kindness.
During the second peak Sophie noticed that her colleagues were struggling with the huge demand on frontline staff and felt saddened that the community support felt much less compared with the first peak.
Sophie said: “We have had a particularly bad time on 14E and 14F at The Royal London Hospital. The death rate at one point during the second peak was extremely high and the nurses and staff were broken. Unlike the first wave, there were no treats or claps and we felt very much alone.
“On one of my days off I started thinking about how to support the staff a bit better, so I put a few messages onto some of my WhatsApp groups, mainly the school parents, my yoga friends and some neighbours.
“I asked if anyone would send us a postcard to let us know that we were not alone and any positive messages to keep going during the tough times, and I wrote an address on the message to send them in.”
The response she received was “brilliant”.
“I got flurries of messages asking what we wanted. Soon bags of cakes, biscuits, chocolates, cards and pictures started arriving.”
Sophie was blown away by the kindness of her friends and neighbours, she said: “The messages of support were unbelievable, from personal stories, to helpful reminders to stop and breathe!
“We also got lovely pictures from local schools, which included drawings about fighting off Covid-19 using long dangly arms and looking on the bright side. We have put them up in our staff room and look at them daily.
“The lesson is, even though people are still busy at home with home schooling and working, they still want to support us and are still thankful that we are taking risks and trying to look after people even at the end.”
The acts of kindness have given new motivation to Sophie and the team.
“This has really surprised and cheered me on.
“Our staff have been reading and talking about the cards. It has been a chance to laugh and cry at the lovely messages we have received, which has in turn allowed us to process things a bit.
“Times may be tough, but we have felt very much part of a community.”
