Surindar

Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Indian
Background: Surindar is 66 and Indian. She is married and has a son. She is now retired.
Surindar thinks she had Covid twice, once at the start of the pandemic and again in 2021. The second time she had unusual hallucinations.

Surindar thinks she had Covid at the start of the pandemic. She was told to go to hospital to take a peak flow test which came back with worrying results. Surindar was confused about this because while she does have asthma it has always been controlled. She also had a chest x-ray which came back with abnormalities. Surinder explains, I had a respirometry test which actually said my lungs were 88 years old, it was that bad Later, she lost her taste and smell, felt sick, and had a high fever. She says, it just debilitated me in every way possible Surindar feels like these symptoms still have some effect today.

The first vaccine affected Surindar strongly. She felt like she had been hit by a bus; and that it was just horrible;.

In 2021 Surindar caught Covid again, despite being very risk careful for several months to avoid it, including missing her granddaughter’s birthday party. She was very unwell and had strange hallucinations. Her husband also got sick with Covid and had a stroke. He went to hospital for several weeks and eventually moved to a care home.

Surindar had a mixed experience with healthcare professionals. She got good advice about protecting herself at the beginning from her GP, but when she and her husband got ill in 2021 they found it more difficult to get the support that they needed.

Surindar noticed how the keyworkers who were facing most risk from Covid were all minorities.

Age at interview 66

I, every time I go into Sainsbury’s or any other supermarket I notice it. I look at the people who are stacking the shelves. I look at the people who are on the tills. They’re all minorities. Very rarely do you get an indigenous person here. They’re all, literally they are you know, you see them and the guys are bringing in truckloads of stuff and people stacking the shelves. And bus drivers, I don’t think I’ve seen a bus driver, white bus driver here. That, it’s a job they do.

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Surindar was immuno-compromised after chemotherapy and was fearful of going out.

Age at interview 66

Yes. I started panicking I thought “God I’ve had this. What if I haven’t got the antibodies because they kept saying that people who’ve had cancer and have had chemotherapy, they’re less likely, their immune system is less likely to respond. And there was me.” And I thought “oh that’s me.” So, I was afraid, I didn’t go out anywhere, and I had to send, my son used to do a bit of shopping for us and drop it outside, didn’t come in.

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