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Posted: 2020-04-23 08:45:09

Updated April 23, 2020 18:47:35

When New Zealand nurse Jenny McGee was tasked with looking after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he was admitted to intensive care with coronavirus, it was "just another day at the office".

But when he named and thanked her on national television, it began to sink in.

Mr Johnson was first admitted to St Thomas' Hospital on April 5 with persistent fever and cough and was later moved to intensive care, where he spent three nights under several nurses' care, including Ms McGee.

Shortly after his release, Mr Johnson released a video thanking by name the nurses who had helped him, singling out two in particular who "stood by my bedside for 48 hours when things could have gone either way".

"They are Jenny from New Zealand, Invercargill on the South Island to be exact, and Luis from Portugal, near Porto," Mr Johnson said.

"My first reaction was that it was a joke! I thought my friends were playing a joke on me. I wasn't expecting it … it was totally out of the blue and it was just shock. I couldn't believe that's what he said on tv," Ms McGee said.

Ms McGee said it was business as usual when the Prime Minister was under her care and he was given no special treatment during her shift.

"I think there was a lot of media interest about him being in hospital and to be honest that was the toughest of the lot, as a unit he was just another patient, we were trying to do our best … so it was business as usual," she said.

While stressful situations were a common reality working in intensive care over the past 10 years, looking after Mr Johnson didn't make her nervous at all.

"I was not fazed by this, it was just another day at the office. When I got in the car after work each night and I could hear things about Boris Johnson on the news, that was very surreal because I thought, wow! I've been looking after him! but I really wasn’t fazed by looking after Boris Johnson."

Mr Johnson, however, said he owed his life to the National Health Service (NHS) staff who treated him.

"I can't thank them enough," Mr Johnson said in his first public statement since he was moved out of intensive care.

"I owe them my life."

'I'm so proudly New Zealander'

Ms McGee spent a lot of time with Mr Johnson, who, she said, was interested in her story and her hometown in New Zealand.

Living in the UK for the past 10 years and working in NHS, she said she feels a sense of duty to help the country deal with the coronavirus crisis, but hoped to one day get back home to New Zealand.

Your questions on coronavirus answered:

As a proud kiwi, she was over the moon when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reached out to her on Facebook, thanking her for her service.

"It's very surreal to have a message from Jacinda. She's a hero of mine. I think she's amazing, she just said how proud she was of me and the country was so proud and it was so heart-warming and that's something I will never forget."

When she saw the message, she responded back to the Prime Minister straight away and said they exchanged in "a little bit of banter" and a "couple of emojis".

"I'm so proudly New Zealander and we are a wonderful group of people who just get on with it when we're up against it. We have a can-do attitude, it just comes naturally from us, from our upbringings."

While Ms McGee has seen dark times through her work in the ICU, she said the messages she's received since being named by Mr Johnson have been heart-warming.

"It's a really hard time at the moment and this whole experience has been so heart-warming, the messages are adorable, there are kids telling me they want to be a nurse, families saying how proud they are and it means so much right now, people will never know how much it means."

What you need to know about coronavirus:

Topics: covid-19, diseases-and-disorders, health, government-and-politics, infectious-diseases-other, world-politics, politics-and-government, united-kingdom

First posted April 23, 2020 18:45:09

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