Finding calm amongst the chaos: How one ward at The Royal Stoke has turned to mindfulness
Dr Aung leads one minute meditations to protect the mental health of ward staff through pandemic pressures
Today marks one year since WHO declared coronavirus a global pandemic. In that time teams of healthcare staff, doctors and nurses at The Royal Stoke have treated nearly six-thousand covid patients and at times been at breaking point.
Twelve months on - frontline NHS workers say they couldn't have done it without each other and that team-efforts to protect their mental health has helped them get through each day.
Dr Yu Thandar Aung is a Consultant Physician and Geriatrician on Ward 78 at the hospital, which up until last month was a designated coronavirus ward. After witnessing the pressures the staff were facing, she initiated and led a daily morning meditation session to help protect the mental health and wellbeing of her team.
"It's important because it's time to think about what we are doing and what we have to do for the patients, but also to blank the mind and find time to just breathe" said Dr Aung.
"The instruction I give them is "Come on everyone, this is time for yourself. You have been giving the compassionate to others - now this is the time that you have to show the compassion to yourself!" I think this is something that we forget. This is nothing about any religion, anyone who is breathing should be doing this practise - and it does help!
"By spending this time together we know each other better - it's a better bonding and I think it's very important to do this in a hospital environment."
"I've had so much positive feedback from all the staff on the ward - and now they're requesting whether we can increase the time!"
Dr Aung said "We spend about a third of our time in the hospital with our colleagues. We've got to know each other. We've got to have that trust from each other. We need to work in it - and although it is busy - we have got to find ourselves in relaxing and find how to deal with our day to day stress.
"Even when I'm not on the ward, I'm very proud of our Ward Manager Sister Jenny, and of Carol, Wendy and Louise - they have been carrying on practicing this one minute meditation mindfulness to bring everyone and everything together.
"So, it does help the wellbeing for people and it does help every part of the ward just to give yourself some time to have a breather, of your own."