McSweeney family: Paramedic, nurses, police officer on Covid frontline

From the ICU to hotel quarantine and Sydney’s streets, the entire McSweeney family work at the coalface day after day as NSW battles Covid but even they couldn’t imagine ‘how devastating’ the Delta strain would be.

Even after donning heavy, “sweaty” and suppressive personal protective equipment, the McSweeney family from Sydney’s northwest loves “sucking it up” and powering through the pandemic as frontline workers.

NSW Ambulance Inspector Kevin McSweeney’s day is dominated responding to Covid patients, his wife Joeanne is behind the scenes as a Telehealth operator while their daughter Erin, 28, is an intensive are nurse and consultant, Matt, 24, is a Blacktown policeman and Catie, 21, has followed her older sister’s footsteps and works in the ICU wards of the Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

Before Covid’s deadly Delta strain hit in June, Kevin, who has been a paramedic for more than 20 years, had responded to countless emergencies, from the aftermath of double shooting murder of siblings Jack and Jennifer Edwards at West Pennant Hills in 2018, to crazed people high on ice.

Then the second outbreak hit.

“I don’t think anyone really saw how devastating the Delta strain would be because it spread so quickly,’’ McSweeney said.

“Our numbers are just so high because it doesn’t discriminate; it goes from young people to the elderly and I think it’s the pace that it spreads that makes it really tough to get on top of.

“I don’t think we could foresee that it would be this devastating, even though the first wave wasn’t great at all by any stretch, but this one is certainly very deadly.’’

Kevin McSweeney is a seasoned paramedic. Picture: Monique Harmer

NSW Ambulance Inspector paramedic Kevin McSweeney with his daughters Catie and Erin who are nurses.

Mr McSweeney is based at the Northmead superstation, in the hotspot of the Parramatta local government area, with many coronavirus call-outs requiring CPR.

“As far as medically, it’s the worst I’ve seen,’’ Mr McSweeney said.

“The workload is just astronomical and topped with that, we wear PPE all day, and whilst it’s so vital to wear it, it’s hot and it’s uncomfortable and it’s not easy to work in full PPE, but it certainly made it a testing time for everyone, to be honest.

“It’s not easy, it’s really hot, it’s really uncomfortable, it’s really sweaty and as the days start to warm up, it gets much worse because you’re sort of wrapped up in plastic and then you’re going to do something that’s quite physical.’’

The under-strain NSW Ambulance has been forced to fast-track an influx of graduate paramedics to cope with daily demands likened to New Year’s Eve.

They will undoubtedly be “thrown into the deep end” but Mr McSweeney is confident they will embrace the challenge.

“It’s testing for anyone at anytime but the paramedics do a fantastic job,’’ he said.

“Everyone turns up to work and accepts what it is and goes out and helps the people who are really unwell, so I think paramedics have done an amazing job by just sucking it up, turning up and going ‘Well that’s what it is and that’s how we got to work now’ and going out and doing the job.’’

Joeanne, Kevin and Erin McSweeney before the coronavirus pandemic.

When he returns home each day, the family patriarch has the empathetic ears of his wife and offspring who share his resilience.

“We are all on the frontline,’’ he said

“There still is a lot of satisfaction when you help people who are really unwell and you do something good for them, there’s satisfaction in that.’’

The can-do attitude has been inherited to all the McSweeneys, including eldest child Erin.

A registered nurse since 2014, she was part of the first team to work with Covid patients in intensive care at RPA Hospital last July and Covid has been the focus of her job since then.

“I’ve been an ICU nurse since 2016 and unfortunately people do pass away,’’ she said.

“I think in the Covid environment, it was rather confronting and I certainly did have fears in the beginning, like ‘What does this mean for my family?

Erin and Catie McSweeney offer sisterly support.

“I do remember sitting down with my family one night and saying ‘I am really, really worried. I’m worried about all of us’.

“This is the point where we had seen footage come out of Italy and we were starting to see New York go off and that was a real concern for me because we were seeing young people and health care professionals who were unwell.’’

Despite the anxiety of working as case numbers escalated, she felt secure at the coalface that is the ICU.

“This sounds like a party line but I’ve honestly felt really protected at work, because at work, I know that I’m coming to work to look after and interact with people who either have, or a high risk of having Covid-19, so you go in with all this PPE, and it may feel uncomfortable to work in it all day, I’ve always felt protected,’’ she said.

“I’ve always felt that there’s more risk going up to, say, going up to the local shopping centre, because I’m not wearing my full PPE and I don’t know who I’m going to interact with there so I’ve always felt safer at work.’’

Erin McSweeney worked in ICU, hotel quarantine and works in disaster management for the Sydney Local Health District.

Wearing PPE can be uncomfortable but doesn’t faze Erin.

Erin’s skills have not been limited to hospital wards, but include hotel quarantine and she has just recently joined the RPA-based disaster management team which assists businesses and venues to prevent infection in the Sydney Local Area Health Service.

Her work also takes her to assist people in NSW Health-provided accommodation after a Covid diagnosis.

“At the end of the day, people want the same thing — they want their friends and family to be all right and they want to be all right,’’ she said.

“Once we talk to people and really explain why we’re doing it, people are quite supportive.’’

If there’s some parting advice from the fully-vaccinated McSweeneys, it’s to get the jab.

“We all want to see our friends and we all want to have our barbecues, and all the rest of it, especially as it gets warmer, but for your health’s sake you have to be double vaccinated,’’ Mr McSweeney said.

“It’s just so important, it will save you from getting really, really unwell.’’

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