A STUDENT nurse who was separated from her asthmatic daughter during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic said what she witnessed at the hospital will stay with her forever.

Lucy Pugh described the start of the pandemic at Worcestershire Royal as ‘absolutely terrifying’ as staff fought the unprecedented virus.

The situation was particularly harrowing for Lucy as she took the difficult decision to separate from her 10-year-old daughter Jasmine, who was sent with her father David to live away from Lucy for the little girl’s safety.

Lucy paid tribute to her colleagues and the team at the hospital - who she got to know when she was assigned to a designated Covid-19 ward during the first stages of the pandemic in March.

“We’ve cried together and we’ve celebrated together,” she said.

"Some of the things that we saw will stay with us forever, but we have had successes as well when patients were fit enough to go home and we all applauded them and rang the bell.

“It’s life changing – people don’t realise what’s going on behind those closed doors, and we’ve just got to keep everyone safe and keep moving forward.”

33-year-old Lucy is a student nurse at the University of Worcester and works part-time at Worcestershire Royal.

She was separated from Jasmine and her husband David for eight weeks during the first wave.

She said: “Jasmine has asthma and we were worried about her because at the start of the pandemic we didn’t know how it would effect children. I just didn’t want her to be at risk with me being exposed to Covid patients and I didn’t want to pass it on to her.

“Being away from Jasmine from March to May was absolutely awful and was one of the most difficult decisions that I have ever made. We were able to stay in contact every day through Facetime, and we organised zoom calls. Knowing I would be able to speak to Jasmine at the end of the day definitely kept me going because it was an absolutely terrifying time, when we didn’t really know what we were stepping into.”

Lucy contracted Covid-19 in April, and after suffering with a temperature and a cough she was able to return to work.

After her ward stopped being a designated Covid ward and more was known about the the virus, Lucy was finally reunited with Jasmine in May.

“It was amazing, we were full of tears and joy.”