'Hope on the horizon' says hospital chief one year after Covid crisis began in Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes hospital staff and health officials worked around the clock to put infection controls in place and take swabs from the guests, who luckily all tested negative.

It was the first time the words Covid and Milton Keynes had become synonymous. But unfortunately, despite the evacuees returning happy and healthy to their homes three weeks later, it was not to be the last.

By early March the infection was spreading quietly around the city and the hospital became busier and busier by the day. People's lives changed in a way they could never have previously imagined and the word Covid comes up in almost every broadcast, every newspaper and every conversation, day after day.

Today Milton Keynes University Hospital chief executive Joe Harrison looks back for the Citizen on a year that has stretched his staff and services to the limit and brought sickness to tens of thousands of people in MK and the worst possible grief to hundreds.

And he has revealed his hope that one day soon MK will emerge, dazed and blinking, into some semblance of normal life.

This is what Professor Harrison says:

"It is scarcely believable that a year has passed since MKUH opened the isolation facility in Kents Hill, Milton Keynes, to receive the 120 British evacuees from Wuhan on 9 February, 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic.

Since then, our hospital, our staff, our patients and their loved ones, and the entire world have endured a long, difficult journey that has brought out the best in people whilst also bringing tragedy and loss to far too many, and Milton Keynes has very much been at the frontline throughout.

"As I write this, 410 MKUH patients have lost their lives due to Covid-19 and, sadly, there will be many more lost before this pandemic is over.

"But hope is here. Whilst our ICU is extremely busy, the number of infections at MKUH is stabilising amid a second wave which has proven even more challenging than the first, following the second national lockdown which began in November.

"And in December, MKUH was chosen as one of the first vaccination centres in the country, and vulnerable local people in Milton Keynes were among the first in the world to receive the vaccine. Since then we have given vaccinated over 13,000 staff and patients so far and we continue to do so.

"But even when much of the pandemic is over and many of the population have been vaccinated, the work will be far from finished. Rest and recovery will be the watchwords as #TeamMKUH and our partners mount a significant effort to clear all of the backlogs, reschedule all of the cancelled procedures and operations and appointments, and continue to help Covid-19 survivors cope with the long-term effects of the virus, about which we still do not know enough.

"Staff will need the breaks and holidays they were unable to take when the demand for treatment and care was relentless during the first and second waves and the period in between,and at MKUH we have already started that staff recovery process with our 12 Weeks of Wellbeing initiative for staff which we launched in January.

And we will all need to spend time with our families and friends, some of whom wewill not have seen for months, perhaps even a year, as we reconnect with each other ways we’ve been unable to in the past months. It has been an unprecedented period for us all but, with a lot of hard work and diligence, with compassion and care, with determination and positive spirit, and with fantastic teamwork and the help of the public, we hope we are all gradually making our way out of this.

"Stay safe."