Jamie Roberts: Principality Stadium as a hospital is sobering but it leaves you in total awe of NHS staff

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Changing roles: Jamie Roberts, playing for the Stormers in Cape Town, is now volunteering for the NHS
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Walking in the depths of the Principality Stadium, Jamie Roberts’ first sensation was one of sadness.

Where the President’s Lounge normally stands, the first ward of Britain’s second makeshift hospital after London’s Nightingale was already complete. In all, 2,000 beds are being installed at the home of Welsh rugby to treat coronavirus patients.

The field of play had already been transformed into a medical building site, in stark contrast to the scene of some of Roberts’ greatest moments there: his international debut against Scotland in 2008, the Grand Slam title win over France four years later and the 30-3 obliteration of England in 2013.

Roberts is seeing it all first-hand, putting his medical degree to good use by volunteering his services to the NHS in Wales.

“Going to visit the stadium and seeing the magnitude of what was being built was quite sobering,” he said. “You just hope that this amazing field hospital is not going to get used.

“It’s very stark and going back brings a whole host of emotions. The reality is this is being built and undertaken to save lives and it’s very important that sits at the forefront of our emotional thinking. My first reaction walking in was, ‘Wow, this is so sad’, as you can’t help thinking of it full of patients who are struggling. But then you remember the Wales Rugby Union and Welsh government are doing an amazing thing here. It’s right to hope for the best but plan for the worst.”

That Roberts finds himself able to volunteer at all is no small feat. Having signed to play for the Stormers in South Africa, he was still supposed to be in Cape Town.

A month ago today, he took part in their last match against the Sharks. Fans had been told before the game it was the last before rugby in South Africa went into lockdown.

Then, on March 23, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, announced a national lockdown from midnight on the Thursday of that week.

Roberts initially booked a ticket home on the Friday out of Cape Town with British Airways, unclear whether that flight would land home.

“But then, on Wednesday night, the president comes on the telly again and announces that he’s locking down airspace on midnight Thursday,” said the 33-year-old. “I’m like, ‘Oh s***!’ and start scrambling around for flights.”

He found one remaining flight on the Thursday with tickets at £2,000 apiece but had to await confirmation. By Thursday morning, he was contacted by BA to say his original Friday flight had been moved forward by 24 hours, while his other costly escape route had been cancelled because of a lack of booked seats.

“The airport was bedlam, with hundreds of travellers with no tickets all hoping for the best,” he said. “We sat on the Tarmac for an hour and a half. It had gone past the midnight curfew and I remember thinking, ‘We’re f***** here’, but we finally took off at 12.15 and must have been the last flight out.”

Roberts had already lent his support to the NHS from afar by offering up his vacant Cardiff flat, which was used by an A&E doctor. On arriving home, he gave his CV to the Cardiff & Glamorgan University Health Board and has been volunteering ever since.

“I was sitting on a medical degree, having graduated from Cardiff in 2013, and thought I could be an extra pair of hands,” he explained.

“It’s impossible for me to go straight into the clinical work, as I never did my foundation year, so I’m not going straight back onto the wards.”

Instead, he has been given an honorary fellowship, with a role of supporting NHS staff wherever required and working closely with the communications and innovations team. “It’s a very sombre situation, but I think we can reduce the anxiety and fear through educating people about how the NHS is reacting,” he said. “If I can help ease a bit of fear, that can be quite powerful.”

As part of that, he is writing a daily blog about his experiences — docrobertsblog.wordpress.com — ranging from the Principality Stadium visit to the death of the cardiothoracic surgeon Jitendra Rathod, who contracted Covid-19 while working on the frontline. “I didn’t know him personally but you saw first-hand the impact his death had on people,” he said. “There’s a lot of people personally affected, losing loved ones and grieving.”

On a group call last week with his Stormers team-mates, each player was asked to talk about the best thing they had seen in the last week. For Roberts, the choice was simple.

“I said that to see how people have responded to this type of pressure is just unbelievable,” he said. “I’m in awe of the NHS. It’s an amazing machine, full of amazing people who do brilliant things. And these are frontline workers putting their own lives at risk.”

To date, he has spent time with the Covid-19 testers, a community team, the operations hub and medical students among others. And in each situation, he has found fear but also positivity.

“We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have fear,” he said. “I’ve got a bit of fear. There’s a lot of people out there who may have had the virus and know families grieving, but I want to alleviate some of that fear by sending positive messages — and there’s a lot of them out there.”

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