Creative writing<br />TOPIC -<br />How to be practical during the covid-19 crisis<br />Word limit 100
Answers
2020 has been a challenging year for all of our students, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re especially proud of those students who were selfless enough to step up to the plate and give their time and energy to helping those in need during this crisis. One of those students is Carl Dowling, a BSc Paramedic Science student. Carl spent time with the London Ambulance Service and, this experience led to him writing his first research papers. He took some time to reflect on his experience and give an honest view of working on the front-line of a national crisis.“At the start of the pandemic, I desperately felt the urge to help people in some way. This is why I became a paramedic student - one of many reasons why I chose this job was to help people in their time of need. So I decided to look for an opportunity to work directly to support the efforts against the virus. In April, I found the opportunity I was looking for to work with a private ambulance service in London. I was based at a hospital near Cambridge where I worked out of the Intensive Care Unit (A.K.A, the COVID-19 Ward). My role was working as part of a team alongside specialists, doctors, nurses, HELIMED Crews (Air Ambulance) and anaesthetists. There was me single crewing one ambulance and two other teammates single crewing theirs. Our roles were to maintain the management and urgent transportation of COVID-19 patients who were severe or in a critical condition, as well as making sure they were ventilated/incubated and on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Along with this, we also had to maintain infection control standards before and after each patient. I would travel as part of a single crew to any hospital within the London area, meet a team on a COVID-19 ward, prepare the patient for transportation and bring them back to my base of operations where better care could be provided in a ward specifically for COVID-19 patients.