Doctors’ emotional poem tells of plight of trapped children trapped during pandemic

Ross Lydall @RossLydall29 September 2020

Doctors have turned to art to share their concerns at the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on children.

About 40 paediatricians have co-written a poem and performed it on video to tell of the “hopelessness” they felt as concerns grew about the lack of safeguarding of youngsters trapped at home.

It comes as Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield, in a major report today [tues], warned the pandemic had compounded existing inequalities and called for a “road map” to “tackle a rising tide of childhood vulnerability”.

The children’s doctors, including Strictly Come Dancing star Dr Ranj Singh, said they were “tired of being a ‘hero’” as they told of the children they were unable to see and those whose “voice isn’t known”.

Their piece, being premiered at the Royal Society of Medicine tonight [Tuesday 29], is a response to a poem, Dear Key Workers, that was written and performed by 80 children with poet Laura Mucha in April.

Dr Najette Ayadi O’Donnell, who initiated the doctors’ response with Ms Mucha, said it became the “trigger for a wider debate about children” and the “lack of the child’s voice in the first pandemic”.

Doctors know children became sicker because their parents delayed seeking medical help, and were more exposes to domestic abuse and “hidden” child abuse during lockdown.

Dr Ayadi O’Donnell said: “So much came out of this poem from a cathartic point of view. It allowed us to be a lot more willing to shout a bit louder about children.

“It allowed us to be honest about our role and the pressure we felt, and also the helplessness we felt – that, in the middle of all of this, children’s lives were literally put on hold. They didn’t go to school for four to five months.

“School is an incredibly protective factor for children. It’s a way to see they have food in their bellies, to see what clothes they are wearing, their emotional health as well as their education and learning.”

Dr Ayadi O’Donnell added: “I‘m worried about the winter. We had huge inequalities before we even went into the pandemic. Now we have more children and families accessing food banks.

“We need to be investing in children. If we don’t get it right we are going to be dealing with the consequences of this pandemic for a much longer time.

“There was common ground that we were fearful of the direction of child health. They felt there was no platform for them to express emotionally how they were feeling. That came out a lot in the poem.”

Ms Mucha said the doctors benefited from using art to articulate the personal impact of the pandemic. “There were tears,” she said. “I think it was as important for them as the children they’re trying to advocate for.

“A lot of the doctors were so used to being bullet-proof. It almost gave them permission… to get in touch with their emotions. In there is a line, ‘I’m trying to keep children living, but sometimes I can’t defeat death.’

“It was this idea that when people die, the doctors suffer. It does cost them. It stays with them. I heard a story where doctors vividly remember, almost in a PTSD way, deaths that had happened years and years ago.

“There are always kids who are hidden at home. Doctors always have a stressful job. It’s just amplified right now.”

According to the Children’s Commissioner’s report, there were 2.2 million vulnerable children living in risky home situations in England prior to coronavirus. It says children’s needs must come first in a second lockdown.

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