Hannah Jenkins: Leadership on the Covid-19 Frontline
Hello! I’m Hannah and I am one of the many frontline NHS workers. I’m 31, married to David and I work as a GP in Gloucester. David and I are part of a church in Cheltenham, which is where we met and got married two years ago.
I qualified as a GP about two years ago, but have been working as a doctor for the last eight years. On the whole I enjoy my job. I work with a fantastic team of people at my surgery who are supportive, fun and caring. My working hours are fairly flexible and I work about 35 hours a week, which leaves time for the other parts of my life like running a church small group, catching up with family and friends, and most importantly making sure I don’t burn out.
The other reason I enjoy my job is that people are interesting. I’m naturally nosey about people and their stories, and being a doctor allows you to try to understand people better. But being a GP is not without its challenges, particularly at the moment – admin is endless, time is lacking, waiting times are ever-growing and patients can be difficult. What’s most challenging though is the fear of making a mistake which could have dire consequences.
Being a Christian and being a doctor complement each other, but openly talking about your faith with patients is not allowed (unless they ask). That doesn’t mean you can’t point them in the direction of Christian charities or resources that can provide hope and support for people when they are struggling. I have pointed several patients who are having relationship difficulties to Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages and to Christian toddler groups or Christian counselling services. Knowing Jesus, who is love, gives me the ability to love and have compassion on the more unlovable patients, which I definitely wouldn’t manage otherwise!
‘A fellow GP trainee at work once asked me what was “different” about me… It led to an Alpha course and him becoming a Christian’
I have also found that being kind, patient, taking an interest in colleagues and choosing to not get stressed by stressful situations does get noticed. I found this most three years ago when a fellow GP trainee at work asked me what was ‘different’ about me and why my attitude to work was different to other trainees (I didn’t think I was doing anything differently!) and it led onto a discussion about faith, an Alpha course and him becoming a Christian! It amazes me how God can use your everyday jobs and the way you approach work to point others to him.
The Covid-19 pandemic has undoubtedly made the last six weeks strange, overwhelming, humbling and at times stressful. It is a new virus that affects people in a new way, and it has meant we have had develop a new way of working. Where possible our appointments now take place over the phone, and we’re relying on video calls, photos and patients being able to describe what they’re experiencing. We have had to get used to only seeing other people while wearing a mask and sometimes full PPE, which is fairly challenging when they are elderly and hard of hearing, or a toddler who is scared of the mask. It is more mentally exhausting without the reward of seeing patients face-to-face, and it carries greater risk of incorrect or missed diagnoses. There is also the added pressure of trying to keep the old and vulnerable away from hospital if possible, and the fact that most routine hospital appointments, X-rays and scans are cancelled – so we are treating on clinical suspicion rather than evidence.
‘The first clap for the NHS was incredibly humbling and made me cry’
It is not all bad though. There has been more camaraderie among the whole practice team and we’re looking out for each other more. We are prioritising coffee debrief times to check in with each other, and on the whole patients have been more grateful for our support. The first clap for the NHS was incredibly humbling and made me cry.
The same is true with my church family and small group. Coronavirus has united us and people are looking out for one another more. Zoom small groups and engaging in church from the sofa has become strangely normal. Our small group has found it helpful taking it in turns to share a daily Bible verse, song and thought for the day, which is far more than we used to do. This has been particularly encouraging on the morning commute to work, where I won’t know what the day might hold.
I would have found this time so much harder without my faith in a God I can trust and rely on. The song and picture that keeps going around my head is ‘My Lighthouse’ by Rend Collective – a cliché perhaps, but one which carries real truth. Jesus is very much the lighthouse on solid rock even though the world is a stormy sea.
‘Jesus is very much the lighthouse on solid rock even though the world is a stormy sea’
The parable of the wise and the foolish builder in Matthew 7 has also been a key Bible passage for me – it has been a reminder that the house built on the rock stood firm. I have found that God has given me peace about the situation, peace in going to work and a lack of fear and anxiety about seeing patients with coronavirus or visiting patients in the nursing home where coronavirus is rife. Keeping routines during this time is important for everyone during this time and I have found having a Christian framework to hang this on very helpful. This has included weekly church, small group and daily prayer and devotion and I have tried to prioritise these things.
Looking ahead, the pandemic is still in full force even though the signs are promising that the infection rate is dropping in the UK. Priorities for prayer would be the quick development of a vaccine, our leaders and medical advisors who are making massive decisions about lockdown measures, and for the non-coronavirus patients who are suffering as their chemotherapy or long-awaited hip replacement are cancelled. In particular, I would love prayer for the nursing home staff as they are seeing so many of their long-term residents die in a short space of time. Every time I visit our nursing home, several members of staff are crying and looking shell-shocked – pray for them that they would know God’s love and peace in this difficult time.
God is the faithful rock in times of trouble and he is bigger and mightier than the coronavirus pandemic. I hope and pray that you would know God as (in the words of Rend Collective) the peace in your troubled sea.