LISNASKEA GP Dr. John Porteous has been at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19 all along, seeing its insidious rise in his community and far beyond.

Recalling the early days of the coronavirus before it had reached the shores of this island, Dr Porteous served as the trip doctor when Devenish College students went on their annual ski trip to Italy.

He said: “I went skiing to northern Italy with Devenish College and saw posters in the airport about the coronavirus illness spreading from China. [We were] delighted to get all our young people back home healthy and safe, [but] within days Italy was in crisis.”

Healthcare staff were pushed into the forefront of the fight against the coronavirus in early March, 2020, when cases began to appear across Northern Ireland.

Doctors and other healthcare staff had a range of emotions: “fear, determination, anxiety and frustration,” said Dr. Porteous.

Face-to-face visits to GPs were for the most part restricted, due to the then unknown trajectory of the virus, and the first wave of the pandemic that was rapidly approaching.

Of those initial changes, Dr. Porteous said: “We needed to change our entire way of working. Restrictions and professional guidance dictated the need to engage with patients effectively without being in the same room, as far as possible.

“[That involved] endless telephone calls, lots of texts and photographs taken by patients, some video calls and face-to-face encounters with masks and aprons, that have become the order of the day.

"It’s been a massive change for the clinicians, but we’ve also had lots of problems with technology, poor mobile phone coverage, and many patients struggle with some of the changes.”

Dr. Porteous and the staff at Lisnaskea Health Centre were grateful for donations of PPE from members of the public, and assistance from Dalradian with transport.

The doctor also lent his support to the faith community. He said: “I was also privileged to support my parish community to advise on how we could make our churches safer to allow church liturgies to continue, albeit in a socially-distanced, mask-wearing manner.”

There were also low points for the family doctor, he revealed: “When patients and friends have been directly affected by Covid-19, some losing loved ones, and others running into personal turmoil as a result of the virus."

However, there were some high points for Dr. Porteous, too, such as the vaccines' roll-out.

He said: “At the start of January, when we began vaccinating our over-80s patients, it was tremendous to meet old friends we hadn’t seen in months, and to have a brief chat.

"More than 95 per cent of the older patients took the vaccine without any doubt in their minds that it was the right thing to do. Social media doesn’t confuse that age group so much.”

Dr. Porteous advised that people be kind and patient with others as we all continue to work through the ongoing pandemic.

Sounding a note of sensible caution, he warned that “just because the Government restrictions allow us to do things we’ve been denied for a while, it doesn’t mean we should do them”, and he encouraged the public to remember to continue following social distancing, and hand-washing measures.