NHS workers and doctors all over the country are revealing how they have been forced to say goodbye to their families for months as they battle against the coronavirus pandemic.
With many of the medics working long, hard hours caring for the sick and the elderly, they have decided to isolate themselves from loved ones to protect them from the killer virus.
Taking to social media, they have shared their plight to try and appeal to Brits to stay home and stop the spread of the illness.
In a video shared online, tearful Chanice Cushion, who works at Southend Hospital in Essex, urged Brits to do all they can to minimise the spread of the virus as she shared her heartbreak at having to move away from her daughter, two.
She posted the clip on Facebook yesterday and said that she had made the decision with her partner to protect their daughter and her vulnerable mother-in-law, who has chronic asthma.
Describing how her daughter was ‘going about her day as normal’ as she packed to leave, Chanice welled up and explained how she told her ‘mummy’s going away for a little while’.
She said: ‘She’s a two-year-old, she doesn’t understand. I left home earlier, and I said ”mummy’s going away for a little while. Mummy’s got work.”
‘And she said, ”Mummy, I come”. I said ”no baby, you can’t. I said I’m going to Nanny’s house and Nanny’s going to stay here with you.”
‘So today’s my first day of 12 weeks away from my kid, and it’s very hard. So I said my goodbyes to her and, as a normal parent would do, started to cry.
‘She just looked at me and went ”Mummy, why are you sad”. I didn’t know how to answer it, so I just replied with ”Mummy is sad”.
‘She grabbed her sleeve and she was wiping my tears away with her sleeve and said ”don’t cry Mummy”.’
In a video shared online, tearful Chanice Cushion, who works at Southend Hospital in Essex, urged Brits to do all they can to minimise the spread of the virus
She said hospital staff are ‘basically suspecting anyone’ who comes through the doors with either a cough or temperature of having coronavirus
The video has been shared more than 80,000 times online, and she has received thousands of comments of support.
Breaking down into tears, Chanice added: ‘I’ve had to leave my daughter for three months because I don’t want to put her in that vulnerable situation.
‘She has no idea what’s going on. No idea at all.’
And Chanice says she is petrified of going in to work.
She said hospital staff are ‘basically suspecting anyone’ who comes through the doors with either a cough or temperature of having coronavirus.
The medical emergency assistant said: ‘Guys, you need to stay indoors.
‘I’m petrified of going to work – I’m petrified – but I have to go to work.
‘You have to stay indoors. There is nothing so special out there for you to be going out.
Nick Dennison, who works at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey, made the ‘difficult choice’ to treat the country’s sickest patients, exposing himself to being infected
‘Yeah, the sun’s shining – you might be dead in a few weeks because you wanted to go out and get some fresh air and mingle with people and not keep a two-metre distance.
‘You need to really get your priorities straight. Go home, stay home, protect your children, protect the vulnerable people that you could potentially be infecting.
‘Shelves are being stripped of fruit, veg, meat. I even struggled to get eggs.
‘It just seems so surreal. How are the NHS workers supposed to stay healthy and fit when we’ve got nothing to feed us, we’ve got nothing to build our energy.
‘Just stay indoors and if you need to come out, one person come out from a family and go do what they’ve got to do, then go straight home.
‘Get straight in the shower, wash your hands for 20 seconds. You need to be so vigilant guys.’
Jenny Hawkins (pictured) , from Surrey, whose husband has cystic fibrosis pleaded with the public on Facebook to stay at home, revealing she has had to move out of her home so she can ‘give her all’ to the health service
Nick Dennison, who works at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey, made the ‘difficult choice’ to treat the country’s sickest patients, exposing himself to being infected – and has explained the personal sacrifices he and other NHS heroes have to make to battle the deadly Covid-19.
Mr Dennison says that ‘the public health message is not getting through’, adding that ‘a lot of people are going to die.’ He is now urging Britons to follow their Government’s advice and socially isolate.
In a moving Facebook post, Mr Dennison wrote: ‘My son turned three years old last week and is six weeks into a three year chemotherapy program for lymphoma. This virus is a big threat to his life and as I am going to be exposed this week doing my job, I can no longer live at home.’
Anaesthetist Jenny Hawkins, from Surrey, wrote on Facebook that she is moving out of the home she shares with her husband, who has cystic fibrosis, in order to protect him and to continue working on the frontline at Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust.
She asked people to listen to government advice so that she could return home to her husband soon, saying ‘I don’t think I’m asking you to sacrifice anywhere near what I’m having to.’
The moving post has gained 199,000 likes and 182,000 shares and Jenny was praised by friends for her ‘amazing’ sacrifice and told they were ‘so proud’ of the effort she was putting in.
One wrote: ‘Jenny your amazing . Everyone stay at home.’