Daily Strain On Our Brave Frontline Workers

Nurse may have to move out of home to help save lives & protect her children

- Emma McMenamy

A nurse fighting coronavirus on the front line has revealed how she may have to temporarily leave her three young children in order to help save lives.

Young mum Emma Murphy, who works in the Emergency Department of Mercy University Hospital in Cork as a clinical nurse manager, said it’s the calm before the storm and she fears the worst is yet to come.

Speaking to the Irish Sunday Mirror, the 35-year-old added she and her husband Joe, who is a social care worker, will have to decide in the coming days who is going to move out of the family home.

She admitted they fear passing Covid-19 on to their children, Molly, 7, Jack, 5, and Lucy who turns three today.

She said: “While it has been quiet enough, we have been doing loads of preparation, loads of simulations and organising the department with walls and partitions around every cubicle.

“There’s a high level of anticipation because we have been warned and are worried about what’s going to come.

“In my experience my last three shifts have been a lot busier. We’re getting more patients in with underlying health conditions who have been very unwell.

“There’s a huge level of anticipation and stress. Myself and my husband work on the front line, he’s a social care worker with the HSE and I’m in A&E and we have three small kids.

“So we’re having an ongoing discussion as to which one of us is going to leave the home.

ORDEAL

“There’s a high chance it will be me who has to leave the house. The prospect of missing my little girl’s birthday on Sunday when she turns three is heartbreaking.

“But at the end of the day if we gave the virus to one of our kids we would never forgive ourselves.”