Wigan nurse's Covid efforts on the pandemic frontline rewarded

A gym owner, who went back to her old job as a nurse to help out on the coronavirus frontline, has been recognised.

Jess Holt, 36, has been volunteering on the intensive care unit at Wigan Infirmary throughout the pandemic when her fitness centre has had to close.

She also continued to provide online fitness classes to the Standish community.

Now Jess, who runs The Studio in Standish, has been named as a Covid-19 Superhero in Wigan Council competition ‘Our Town Awards’.

The awards, which took place remotely on Thursday, recognise all those who have gone above and beyond to make their neighbourhood a better place.

A delighted Jess thanked everyone who supported her.

She said: “I have only gone and won it!

“I still cannot believe I was nominated in the first place against such fantastic and deserving people. To be in that category was so humbling.

“To then go and win! Wow. Very emotional.

“Thank you to literally everyone for supporting me along my journey.

“I could not have got through these past 12 months without you. You all mean the absolute world to me.”

In the past Jess has described what it has been like to work on the intensive care unit in Wigan during the crisis.

She said: “I’ve been a nurse for 12 years and worked in intensive care for eight years and have never experienced anything like this.

“It is exhausting emotionally, physically and mentally. The hardest thing is seeing families and relatives having to say goodbye on Face Time.

“You look around at people who are so young and have so little medical history.

“They are the last people you would expect to become poorly. That is very hard to accept. It’s just very sad because positive outcomes are few and far between. You feel like you are swimming through treacle.”

Jess has also previously spoken about how she wants to help people suffering with Long Covid, who are still extremely ill and face an array of debilitating symptoms following their brush with Covid-19.

She has said she wants to speak to local Long Covid campaigners and groups and then potentially set up some sessions for sufferers, with the options of online and virtual programmes or bringing them to the fitness centre.

She said: “There’s still so much we don’t know about Covid and the effects it has on people long-term. Whether they’ve had a hospital stay or not some people experience symptoms which are very debilitating.

“People who have previously been really fit and well are now struggling. They are experiencing really significant cardiovascular disease, neurological dysfunctions.

“People with Long Covid are finding it hard to get going and are putting pressure on themselves to get back to how they were before. They need to understand how to bridge that gap and support that process.

“It’s not a case of going back to the gym and going hard, that’s not how Covid works. There’s potential to do damage with that. With my nursing knowledge I would like to be able to offer a unique approach to helping people in the local community who have developed symptoms of Long Covid.”

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