Across the country and the world former medical workers are stepping up and getting ready to return to the frontline to help in the battle against covid-19, and here in Fermanagh it is no different. 

While in other countries the medical service is already struggling to cope with demand, here at home the influx of critically ill patients has not yet begun. However, experts have warned it is coming, and some former nurses here are getting prepared. 

One of those who has applied to be put back on the live register is Jenny Irvine, CEO of the Arc Healthy Living Centre, who said she knew other former nurses who had done the same. This includes others at the Arc, where the staff and volunteers are working together to coordinate a collective community response to the crisis. 

Ms Irvine said that “at a time like this” people wanted to do all they could to help. 

“I was laughing because my kids were saying  that it was a bit like the reserve for Dad’s Army, I was joking it was a Mum’s Army,” she joked, adding that on a more serious note her children were medical professionals and she did not want to “leave them out there by themselves.” 

Ms Irvine said those who were trained nurses could contribute a lot to helping in the fight.  “People with the experience and empathy, at a time like this, can bring calm and comfort to the situation,” she said. 

Ms Irvine added there were other areas nursing and medical could be “redeployed” from. 

“If the universities are standing down students, they need to actually put their tutors towards this,” she said, for example. “Bring in these people, get them trained, back on the live register, and get them out on to the front line.”