News

Apr 18, 2023

Woman disguises herself as cleaner to see dying mum in hospital

Alexandra Spencer-Jones' mother was admitted in March 2020 and caught Covid,

Alexandra Spencer-Jones' mother was admitted in March 2020 and caught Covid, forcing her daughter to work out how to see her when visitors were banned at Darent Valley Hospital

A woman desperate to see her dying mum at the height of the pandemic disguised herself as a cleaner and a nurse to pay her a visit.

Alexandra Spencer-Jones, 38, wanted to see her mum Heather in the months leading to her death at Darent Valley Hospital in Kent in May 2020.

Strict rules at the time meant she was not allowed to visit her and only allowed a ten minute chat on an iPad each day.

An actor by trade, she took things into her own hands and dressed as hospital staff but was foiled each time.

Thankfully, she and her father were able to see her in the moments before her death two months’ later.

Now Alexandra is taking her experience to the stage, Liverpool Echo reported.

She said: "I couldn't really cope with being separated. We're an incredibly close family, it's just me, mum and dad.

"Darent Valley had a firm policy of no visitation, so I was only allowed 10 minutes on an iPad with my mum each day.

"As an actor I started trying to dress up as a nurse, a cleaner, to get into the hospital. Once I got right up to the ward, but I didn't get in. They caught me.

"Practically I understand the ethics being wonky now, given the circumstances. But I was desperate. She was failing. She lost the power to walk and the power to speak. To even get to the window to wave at me in the car park, she needed pushing.

"Sometimes the staff would forget to charge the phones because they were so busy, and there was no way to reach her.

"I used to sit outside the window of the hospital and cut out paper hearts and stick the hearts to the wall so she could see them.

"I did everything I could do, because even though she had lost her speech, she was engaged, she could understand what we were doing."

Heather, from Clubmoor, was admitted to hospital the same week Britain went into lockdown in March 2020, after suffering months of health issues.

She caught Covid-19 in hospital and died of the infection in May.

Alexandra, a theatre director and writer from Tuebrook, said: "The day she died, my father and I got a phone call saying we need to come quickly.

"[We had] to choose which one of you [was] with her, because only one person was allowed in as she died. We had this terrible dilemma. The love of her life or her best mate and only child - who do you choose?

"I told my dad he had to go in. He spent 10 hours with her, and she seemed to be refusing to die until she saw me.

"The nurses made a deal with my dad that if he swapped, I could come in. I came in, and she died within 20 minutes."

Chopped Logic will play for one night only at the Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot on Wednesday, June 21 at 7.30pm.

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