When our Dad went onto a ventilator with Covid, one of the hardest aspects was the inability to communicate. Even when a loved one is unconscious, just being able to be there is everything. So we started thinking how we could make some kind of connection. Our Dad raised us to love words, and always said what he’d find hard about a long hospital stay would be lack of mental stimulation. Since Sam reads audiobooks, there was the suggestion he could read something and maybe we could get some kind of recording device to the hospital. The doctors on the ward suggested this might be something that all of the recovering patients could benefit from - at which point we started the conversation with Audible that has led to the Whittington trial and on.

As we learned about the procedures put in place for patients suffering from the virus it became clear that those who are placed on ventilators can find themselves experiencing a severe mental challenge on top of their body physically fighting the illness – unable to communicate, isolated, with reports of severe delirium and post-traumatic stress. Our hope with this project is to go a small way to combating some of the misery that slow recovery can bring.

UPDATE

After 306 days, the longest (we think) hospitalised Covid patient in the country Geoff Woolf came home on the 21st January 2021. His new life brings difficulties, he is paralysed and his brain has been damaged by stokes caused by Covid, but the twinkle in his eye is still very much there.