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Paper short abstract:

In this talk I reflect on the process of selecting interview excerpts for a Healthtalk module on COVID19 and intensive care in the UK. I ask how -with and despite the fluidity and multiplicity of COVID19- we may learn from these narratives for peer support and improvement of healthcare services.

Paper long abstract:

Health and sickness are shaped culturally and socially, and change over time. In this regard, COVID-19 is no different than other conditions, although the pace of its transformation makes its fluidity particularly visible.

COVID-19 was first diagnosed and lived in the UK in the spring of 2020. At that time, much was unknown about the new virus, and information has been continuously changing since. In contrast to thinking about this in terms of ‘discovery’, shifting our epistemological take allows to see the ‘enactment’ of the virus. For some intensive care COVID19 survivors it is a condition that causes significant long-term effects on breathing, energy and mental wellbeing, and for which a pathway to support must be continuously fought for and negotiated depending on the medical specialty they are seeking help from. For others it is a vehicle to demonstrate their ability to achieve a rapid recovery. For family members the condition was mostly an obstacle to their access to hospital.

In developing a module about Intensive Care experiences with COVID19 for Healthtalk.org, the questions of fluidity and multiplicity become methodological concerns: how to tame these for the online module? What of early pandemic experiences remain relevant to know for an audience interested in COVID-19 ‘now’? How to depict patient experiences ‘of' COVID19 when its contours are shapeshifting? In this talk I draw out learnings about the temporal and geographical ‘translations’ of narratives, and how we may nevertheless learn from them for peer support, and improvement of healthcare services.