Mark Brown spoke with Lulu at the Waldron Health Centre in New Cross in June 2021.
TRANSCRIPT
MB: This is Mark Brown for Lewisham Vaccination Stories and I am deep in the heart of the Waldron Clinic Vaccination Centre, and I’m here with…?
L: Lulu.
MB: Lulu, I think you have been involved quite intimately as your job in this whole effort. What have you been up to and how has it all been?
L: Well, I joined the team as a care co-ordinator, and it has been interesting. We started from a foundation with nothing really to guide us, but we pulled it all together, set up the vaccination centre, and learnt a lot of things on the way, and here we are. I think we’ve been operating successfully for the past 6 months.
MB: Which is quite some going. What is it you do on a day-to-day basis?
L: Well, on a day-to-day basis we might be calling up patients, booking them up; otherwise we will be here running the clinics and basically, yes, that is what we do.
In the background, obviously there are also the different GP practices under which we operate and serve. We might also be doing some of their administration work with regard to vaccinating, let’s say the housebound people or people in care homes. Yes, that is basically what we do. We try and co-ordinate all those areas.
MB: It has been a massive effort. I imagine it has taken lots of your time professionally in your working day, but it has also been a time of great change and upheaval for lots of people. How has this pandemic been for you?
L: This pandemic has been, it is a bit of a mixed bag, but the first thing that comes to mind is that has been brilliant in terms of family time. When you’ve got children who’ve grown up — I’ve got some teenagers and a young one who has just started secondary school, so you don’t really notice the changes. All of a sudden when you are stuck together, you find out that they’ve changed their interests in terms of movie genres and types of food they like.
Yes, and because you are together with each other 24/7 you are basically learning how to respect each other’s space and just get to know more about the other person in order to make them feel comfortable. We’ve gotten to know each other more and we’ve really bonded, I think, because of the pandemic.
A few skills came out of the works. One of my teenage sons has just developed this interest in cooking, and I think he is actually a better cook than me now. (Laughter) Yes, so it has just been really brilliant.
On the other hand, we’ve lost a few people that we know close to us, so yes, this COVID has been very real to us and yes, we’ve felt the sad part of it, the loss of friends and family. Yes, so a mixed bag.
MB: It is very much a mixed bag. Is there anything you are really looking forward to once this period is over?
L: I don’t know. I think it has been going on for so long and this thing that they call the “new normal,” it kind of makes you reassess whether you really want to go back to that, or what do you want changed?
But I think what we have realised is there is a lot of uncertainty in the future. All I can hope is that it will change for the better in terms of, let’s say us not going back to polluting our towns and cities with noise and fumes from cars and trucks. But yes, I think it is hard to say what I’m looking forward to.
MB: Brilliant, and yes, it is a very, very strange time, I think. How has it felt to watch so many people being vaccinated?
L: It has been an amazing experience. I think having been under lockdown for so long, for a year, and then to come out and be engaged in activity that brings you to people from all walks of life has been just really interesting.
But also it has been rewarding soulfully because you know you are doing a service, you are doing something towards saving people’s lives. It gives you purpose. I think the best patient group I worked with were those 80 -plus, because for some of them, they’ve had to really be under lock and key, you know?
MB: Mmm-hmm.
L: Really isolated from the world, so coming here for most of them was their first time out, and they were just so grateful. I think also realising that having this vaccination is taking away that feeling of helplessness from a lot of people, and seeing it on their faces, the gratitude and the hope has just been an amazing experience. I couldn’t have wished for something better to start the new year so, yes.
MB: Brilliant. Thank you for that.