Covid-19: Liverpool Hospital staff’s heartbreaking Covid jab plea

Harrowing footage from inside Liverpool Hospital shows the chilling reality of Sydney’s Covid-19 crisis as staff urge Aussies to get vaccinated.

Harrowing footage taken inside southwest Sydney’s Liverpool Hospital – which has been severely impacted by a Delta variant outbreak – shows the chilling reality of Sydney’s Covid-19 crisis.

Posted on the hospital’s Facebook page, the video – titled The Hardest of Days – shows staff treating seriously ill patients who are “struggling to breathe”.

Eleven people have died and 37 people tested positive during the Liverpool outbreak, which has been the biggest hospital Covid-19 cluster in Sydney so far.

Hospital staff at Liverpool Hospital tell of having to phone the loved ones of patients nearing the end of their lives so they can say their final goodbyes.

In the heart-wrenching video, staff working in the Covid-19 ward urge those who are not vaccinated to get the jab as soon as possible.

One scene shows nursing staff helping a Covid-positive patient who is unable to stand, while another shows staff in full PPE gear holding the hand of a seriously ill person who is lying in a bed.

A Covid-19 patient at Liverpool Hospital struggles to breathe.

“The worst day is every day,” Jenny Wallace, the Nurse Unit Manager of Liverpool’s Respiratory Ward said.

“Every day you are assisting patients that are struggling to breathe, that are away from their families and are only there with the nurses and doctors who are there to support them.”

Dr Jonathan Williamson, Respiratory staff Specialist at Liverpool Hospital, spoke of the tragedy of patients who have died from Covid-19 and have been unable to have their loved ones by their sides due to the risk of infection.

Staff at Liverpool Hospital tend to a patient who is seriously ill with Covid-19.

A patient struggling to stand is helped to their bed.

“I have unfortunately looked after a number of patients who haven’t made it,” he said.

“With dying patients, we like to be in there with them and hold their hands and have their families with them.

“Often I’m holding a telephone while they are speaking their last words to their family.”

Dr Jonathan Williamson is urging Australians to get jabbed.

In a stark reminder of the importance of getting jabbed, Dr Williamson said the difference between vaccinated patients and those who were not was “chalk and cheese”.

“(Vaccinated patients) just don’t get as sick,” he said.

“Get yourself vaccinated and listen to the public health advice.”

Jenny Wallace, the Nurse Unit Manager of the hospital’s Respiratory Ward, echoed her colleague’s plea for Australians to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

People need to “pull up their sleeves and get the jab,” she said.

Nurse Unit Manager Jenny Wallace praised Liverpool Hospital staff for their strength and compassion.

“They need to protect their loved ones and therefore they don’t have to join us here on these terrible, difficult days we have.”

Ms Wallace said the dedicated staff at Liverpool Hospital had showed “nothing but their strength, their resilience, their commitment and compassion”.

Originally published as Covid-19: Liverpool Hospital staff’s heartbreaking Covid jab plea