Room for local A&E staff to ‘have a wobble’

The project is the brainchild of the manager of Derry’s A&E’s department Laura Kyle, who said: “Over the past few months we have been preparing for Covid-19 to hit Northern Ireland.

“This has involved lots of changes within our department. In preparing for this, and watching the devastation occurring worldwide, I have been increasingly worried about the impact on the mental health and wellbeing of not just staff but the general public both during and in the aftermath of this pandemic.

“As ED staff we are known for our resilience and our ‘just get on with it’ attitude, however as we enter a period of unknown pressures and challenges, and given that a lot of our staff have now been isolated from their normal support mechanisms, I feel as a manager, I have a responsibility to look after staff and their mental health. A lot of our staff have chosen to move out of family homes to protect their loved ones so it was clear to me that we will be each other’s family in the coming months and therefore needed to find a way for us to be able to support each other.

“I came across the idea of a ‘wobble room’ on social media and felt this would provide an area for staff to comfortably ‘have a wobble’, support each other and ultimately mind their mental health. The room is very much in its infancy and we have provided mental health resources which we hope we can expand on in the coming days. Since we opened it yesterday we have been overwhelmed at the response from people offering ideas and resources to help us build on what we’ve done.”

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