Prince William marked five years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic by visiting staff and volunteers at the Royal Berkshire Hospital’s Oasis Health and Wellbeing Centre and Garden

Prince William has thanked our NHS heroes for their bravery, as he marked the fifth anniversary of Covid.

During an emotional visit to a hospital that lost two members of beloved staff to coronavirus, the Prince of Wales paid tribute to their tireless efforts on the frontline and beyond. At the Royal Berkshire Hospital, William sat down with a group of nurses to discuss the impact of the pandemic on their work and wellbeing, telling them: “Remember you’re doing a really good job, thank you.”

March 11 will mark 5 years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. What followed were months of lockdowns, social distancing and fear about this fast-spreading virus. Medical staff were rocked when the hospital became the epicentre of the disease with Britain’s first ever reported death from the disease in March 2020.

Prince William chats to NHS staff at the Royal Berkshire Hospital ( 
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The prince said today he wanted to also “pay tribute” to nurse Julie Edward, who worked in the hospital’s complex orthopaedic and trauma unit and Dr Peter Tun, a consultant in neurorehabilitation, who both lost their lives while treating patients at the hospital. At the time, Julie’s daughter Ashley said she put her life “selflessly on the line for others”.

She said it was the perfect profession for someone so caring and friendly and that her mother was “always the star of the party”. Julie trained to be a nurse in her fifties and worked at the Royal Berkshire for many years.

Julie Edward, who died with Covid-19 ( 
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Dr Tun, who came to the UK from Burma in 1994 and had worked at the hospital for more than 21 years before he was admitted to intensive care and died ages 62. In a statement after his sons they were “immensely proud” of his sacrifice, calling him “our superhero Dad”.

They added: “He used to say, ‘treat all your patients like they are your own family’ and this speaks to the type of character that he had. To us, he was simply the best human we know and we will miss him every day.”

Dr Peter Tun, who died after contracting coronavirus ( 
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A senior royal source said: “Today’s visit was of immense importance for the Prince of Wales to celebrate our NHS heroes and remember the sacrifices made by so many during the coronavirus crisis.”

The Prince of Wales returned to the hospital without his wife, Kate, having both visited in December 2020. After jointly becoming royal patrons for NHS Charities Together that year, the couple made the trip to Reading as part of their Whistlestop Royal Train Tour.

They embarked on a train tour of the UK to thank frontline workers ahead of Christmas and they greeted NHS staff at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, where Kate was born. During the crisis as the world was told to stay at home and isolate to stop the spread of the virus, the couple took to using video calls to reach our to charities and frontline workers as the nation came together to thank the NHS.

William visited the hospital’s Oasis Health and Wellbeing Centre and Garden ( 
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Getty Images)In April 2020, William was struck down with Covid just days after the King, then Prince of Wales, announced he had been diagnosed with the disease. William’s diagnosis was not reported until November, with the prince keeping his condition a secret as he “did not want to alarm the nation”.

Sources said the virus left him struggling to breathe, although he did continue with work and video engagements around the period. The dad of three had a seven day break from calls and video messages after April 9.

But on April 16 he opened Nightingale Hospital Birmingham at the NEC via video link. He told them it was a “wonderful example” of the “pulling together” happening across the country to fight the pandemic.

Both William and Kate were later pictured having their Covid jabs in a drive to get people to take up the vaccine. Listening intently to the collective experiences of the hospital staff, William listened as one senior nurse became emotional when he described not visiting his elderly parents in Italy for two years to protect them during the outbreak.

William laughed when invited to join a yoga class ( 
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The prince visited the Trust’s centre in his role as royal patron of NHS Charities Together which provided some of the £3million needed to renovate the resource that has a gym, yoga classes and a garden providing spaces for recreation, reflection and vegetable growing. He also spoke about his own experiences working on the emergency services during his time as an air ambulance pilot for the East Anglian Air Ambulance between March 2015 and July 2017.

Sitting with staff and volunteers at the hospital’s Oasis Health and Wellbeing Centre and Garden, which was set up with funding from NHS Charities Together in the aftermath of the pandemic, William said more needed to be done to help them with the mental health impact of their jobs.

He said: “Everyone in the NHS is there to care for others, so the last person who gets looked after is the individual. And I’ve seen when I’ve worked with doctors and nurses, when I’ve worked with paramedics, they always put it down the line because they don’t want to put their workload on someone else.

“For me, looking into the nation’s mental health over the last few years, unless there’s almost enforced breaks in someone’s career, as part of your career development, we’re never going to get to that point where you can look after their mental health, because you always rely on the individual to put their hand up.”

Sergio Tammelleo, 33, a lead nurse who worked on a Covid ward during the pandemic, had told William about not seeing his family in Italy for a number of years and after the visit talked about his harrowing pandemic experiences.

He said: “I remember there were days when we had 15, 20 deaths in a day and that still affects me. If you think about somebody who comes to the ward and within four or five hours will pass away, die, that is something that will never go away, it will stay in my mind forever.”

NHS Charities Together launched its Covid-19 Urgent Appeal in 2020 and raised £162 million to support NHS staff, patients and communities, working with a network of 235 NHS charities based in every Trust and Health Board around the UK.