91Èȱ¬

When the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport found itself at the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, staff at the Intensive Care Unit began to film their own lives, in and out of work. The result is a powerful new documentary showing life in critical care as the virus threatens to overwhelm the NHS.

The Intensive Care teams are on the frontline in the battle against coronavirus, and we see the emotional impact their work has on them – as well as the gratitude they feel for the public support. The film shows the staff working tirelessly to triple the unit’s bed capacity, the struggles coping with PPE and the toll the epidemic takes on family life.

This unique documentary, filmed entirely by NHS staff, presents an extraordinary personal insight into hospital life during the most serious public health crisis in living memory.

Produced by the BAFTA Cymru-award-winning team behind Critical: Inside Intensive Care, the 60-minute documentary for 91Èȱ¬ One Wales follows the lives of medical staff during the four weeks from the time the lockdown came into force, until the number of cases begins to level off in late April.

Filmed on mobile phones and small cameras, the film captures life at the sharp end of the fight against the virus, as the dedicated medical staff struggle to contain the outbreak. The Aneurin Bevan Health Board that covers Newport and the Gwent Valleys emerged as one of the UK’s coronavirus hotspots, with more cases than anywhere outside London, per head of population.

Wales has fewer intensive care beds than anywhere else in Britain. This, alongside an aging population, long-standing social problems and close proximity to the urban populations of England, meant that the Gwent outbreak was one of the most serious in Britain.

Intensive Care Consultant Dr David Hepburn recovered from coronavirus to return to work on the unit. He says in the film: ‘There’s a huge variation in the demographic, but traditionally this has been an area of high social deprivation and particular health problems, and Newport is known for seeing more extreme pathology than in some of the more metropolitan areas like Cardiff, so not a desperately healthy population. But at the minute, we are at the epicentre of this outbreak, outside the big metropolitan areas of London and Birmingham.’

‘Per head of population, we are seeing more people in Newport who are desperately unwell than most areas and certainly than anywhere else in Wales.’

Emotional video diaries show doctors and nurses leaving their families to come into work to find the unit full of patients on ventilators. It shows the challenges of communicating with colleagues in full PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and the heartbreak of having to tell relatives over the phone that their loved ones have died, as the hospital is closed to visitors.

It shows the extraordinary outpouring of public support for NHS staff, with gifts of food and drink sent to the unit and the reaction of staff the Thursday night Clap for Carers. We see how the staff work together to keep morale high under incredibly traumatic circumstances.

Intensive Care Consultant Dr Laura McClelland speaks of her hope for the future: ‘From a personal perspective, as much as the lockdown has been difficult, it’s been quite a period of reflection and prioritisation.

‘I believe that the inclination of mankind to recognize the value of the family and the community and time spent just being and appreciating what they have, their health, the health service, is something we can bring forward into the future.’

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