Stories from the frontline: Belinda Dela Cruz

22 February 2021 - Belinda tells us about her redeployment into the PRUH Emergency Department

Belinda is usually based at Queen Mary’s Hospital (Sidcup), and was redeployed to help the Trust’s response to COVID-19. She explains: “I am a Senior Ophthalmic Technician based in Queen Mary’s Hospital (Sidcup) and my main responsibility is to assist doctors and nurses by performing several diagnostic eye tests on patients.

“I was redeployed to support Emergency Department (ED) Admin at the PRUH, where I could help staff with the high numbers of COVID-19 patients we were seeing.”

Belinda explains how she and her team remained upbeat and hopeful during this time. “By looking on the brighter side, things will get better eventually and this will pass. Also, knowing that almost everyone is on board doing their bit to help. The email updates from the Trust also helped a lot, as it makes you feel involved in what’s going on with the Trust – especially with the COVID-19 situation. And the vaccination provided will hopefully help decrease the number of COVID-19 patients.

“When I look back at this time, I realised that everything has an end, and losing hope shouldn’t be an option. Change is inevitable, so adaptation and flexibility are very helpful when an unexpected situation arises. Kindness must be maintained as well, as chaos can either bring the best or worst in people sometimes.

“Redeployment was indeed a very stressful time for me in the beginning but with the help and great support of the ED team, the job has been bearable and been made easy – and eventually become something interesting as I begin to learn new things and challenges.

“I really want to help as much as I can because I know that sooner or later, I will have to go back to my original department and role, and before that, at least I want to ease some workload/backlog even a bit from the admin side.”