Nurse’s desperate plea to visit husband in hospital amid Covid lockdown

A pregnant nurse who begged authorities to relax Covid rules to allow her to see her hospitalised husband has been granted an exemption.

A pregnant nurse’s plea for health authorities to allow her to see her husband as he battles a severe brain injury in hospital has been heard, after a desperate appeal for an exemption was granted.

An overjoyed Maddie Morris confirmed to The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday evening she would be allowed to see husband Anthony at Westmead Hospital, after the Western Sydney Local Health District overturned its previous decision rejecting her application to see him.

Pregnant nurse Maddie Morris has been granted an exemption allowing her to now visit her husband in hospital.. Picture: Supplied

“It’s bloody brilliant…it’s such a weight off my shoulders,” Mrs Morris, who is 24-weeks pregnant with the couple’s first child, told The Telegraph.

“I could see him now, but I’m just playing things safe and have got a Covid-swab,” she said.

“As soon as it’s negative I’m going to see him, I’m so excited.”

It’ll be the first time in a week Mrs Morris will see her husband, after Covid-19 restrictions brought in to safeguard hospitals resulted in visitors being barred.

A heartbroken Mrs Morris had earlier told the Telegraph that Anthony, who has been in Westmead’s brain injury unit since he was impaled through the head in a horror car accident in February, was “confused, blind and completely dependent” and had been eating less since the stringent measures were brought in.

Maddie Morris with her husband Anthony. Picture: Supplied

She said she hoped exemptions would be extended to the families of other brain injury patients.

“I wish (the last week) didn’t have to happen, I wish brain injuries were up there on the exemption list,” she said.

“It was a crap week, but at the end of the week we got the result we wanted – it’s a weight off my shoulders.”

NURSE’S DESPERATE PLEA TO SEE HOSPITALISED HUSBAND

A pregnant nurse has pleaded with health authorities to relax strict Covid-19 rules preventing her from seeing her husband as he battles a severe brain injury in hospital.

Maddie Morris, whose husband Anthony has been in Westmead’s brain injury unit since he was impaled through the head in a horror car accident in February, says she “doesn’t know where else to go” after her application for an exemption to visit him was rejected last week.

Mrs Morris, who is 24-weeks pregnant with the couple’s first child, said Anthony is “confused, blind and completely dependent” and had been eating less since the stringent measures banning family members from visiting were brought in.

The couple found out they were pregnant just four days before Anthony’s February accident. Picture: Supplied

“For Anthony, he hasn’t been eating as well, and kind of refusing to engage in certain activities, last night he refused to eat anything with the nurses until they put me on the phone – then he ate his whole tub of yoghurt and took all his medication,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

Mrs Morris, 24, said she “really wanted to reiterate this isn’t an attack on NSW Health”, adding staff at the brain injury unit had been “wonderful”, but pleaded for more discretion to be shown to desperate family members.

She said as a midwife herself she fully understood the stringent measures in place to protect patients, but said families played a “massive role” in the recovery of brain injury cases.

“If I could say anything, it’d be that there is a time and a place for Covid restrictions – but for people with a serious brain injury, the importance of a family member there supporting these people needs to be considered,” she said.

“We want them to cognitively improve and recover, and not deteriorate, and family members play a massive role in recovery.”

She said other patients and families in the unit were facing the same agonising separation as she and Anthony, who turned 25 in hospital last week.

“Through all of this, Anthony is just one case – he’s sitting on a ward full of people with brain injuries,” she said.

“It’s beyond the physical – it’s the emotional impact – these people are confused, and alone, and most of the time they don’t know who they’re talking to.

“I just don’t know where else to go – I need to be there for him.”

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said on Tuesday she would “be happy to look into (the) case” but that ultimate responsibility remained with the Western Sydney Local Health District.

“These decisions around access are made through the local health district and so I think it is most appropriate that those issues should be resolved given the specifics of each case,” Dr Chant said.

Western Sydney Local Health District was contacted for comment.

Originally published as Nurse’s desperate plea to visit husband in hospital amid Covid lockdown