A SENIOR nurse who spent 41 days in intensive care due to coronavirus (COVID-19) has today (Monday, July 20) returned home after being given an emotional send-off by hospital staff.
Colleagues from four wards at Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI) gathered to clap and cheer as 52-year-old Ayesha Orlanda finally left the hospital, part of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Ayesha, a Senior Sister on the BRI’s Acute Dialysis Unit, was brought into hospital suffering from the virus in May and was initially cared for in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where she needed to be put on a ventilator as she was critically ill.
After 40 days in a coma, she eventually regained consciousness and was transferred to a ward to continue her recovery, from where she was discharged on Monday afternoon. In total she spent 67 days in hospital.
Ayesha, from Bradford but who originally comes from the Philippines, said: “I want to extend my gratitude to all the staff who cared for me – they kept me alive, kept encouraging me and were there for me. I feel like I have been given a second chance at life. I am one of the lucky ones.
Journey
“I learnt a lot from this journey – it’s really hard to be a patient when you’re a nurse! I understand so much now about how important it is to be there for your patients, to spend time talking to them and to try and slow down. Be patient with your patients.”
Ayesha’s husband, Asif, spent time with her, holding her hand, while she was in ICU and was there as she left hospital.
She is now looking forward to being back home to continue her recuperation and eventually get back to the job she loves – being a nurse and caring for people.
Matron for Cardiology and Respiratory, Sonya Tetley, whose team looked after Ayesha, said: “We are absolutely delighted to see Ayesha being discharged today. She’s been in hospital a long time and it’s been very traumatic for her, but she’s made a brilliant recovery and we are very proud of her.”
Watch the footage of Ayesha being discharged and clapped out of the hospital below.
ENDS
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Note to Editors:
- Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is responsible for providing hospital services for the people of Bradford and communities across Yorkshire. We serve a core population of around 500,000 and provide specialist services for 1.1 million people.
Our 5,500 staff work over several sites, including Bradford Royal Infirmary, which provides the majority of inpatient services, and St Luke’s Hospital, which predominantly provides outpatient and rehabilitation services. We also manage local community hospitals at Westwood Park, Westbourne Green, and Eccleshill.
In early 2017, a new £28 million wing opened at Bradford Royal Infirmary, part of a £75m investment to improve patient care across our hospitals over a five-year period. It provides world-class facilities for elderly care, children’s services, a state-of-the-art intensive care unit with increased single-room provision and a retail concourse.
The new wing is a continuation of our work to improve patient experience after our new £2 million neonatal unit officially opened in January 2015. Our maternity services were recently shortlisted for the Royal College of Midwives’ (RCM) Midwifery Service of the Year Award, recognising excellence and innovation in the provision of maternity care.
In 2017, we also completed a £2m refurbishment of our Emergency Department (ED) as part of an ambitious vision to create a more efficient acute medicine service for the people of Bradford. It has been designed to provide a slicker and more efficient service, with faster senior clinical involvement at an early stage in the patient pathway.
As a teaching hospital, we are at the forefront of education and development in healthcare, and have an excellent reputation for research performance. We are one of the leading centres in conducting applied research in the country, particularly in quality and safety, elderly care and rehabilitation.
The Trust is home to the Bradford Institute for Health Research (BIHR) where researchers have led the development, validation and implementation of the award-winning Bradford Electronic Frailty Index (eFI) which helps calculate an elderly person’s risk of disability, impairment, falls and complications of chronic diseases, as well as their diminishing independence and capability. This is now being used by 98% of all GPs across the country.
Our award-winning Ophthalmology department is home to numerous worldwide clinical trials taking the lead in eye care research and we are one of only three sites in the United Kingdom to be enlisted in the Perioperative Enhanced Recovery Hip Fracture Care of Patients with Dementia (PERFECTED) study, which will investigate how the NHS can introduce better standards of care to improve outcomes for people with dementia.
The Trust has its own Bradford Hospitals Charity: https://bradfordhospitalscharity.org/
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