But RBWH social workers Amanda Masters and Myra Custer and dietitian Rebecca Fichera are over the moon – they are some of the lucky workers chosen to attend Wednesday’s State of Origin decider.
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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Friday announced close to 2000 frontline workers would be given free tickets to the game to say thanks. The trio, who have worked the entirety of the pandemic, said it was a great initiative to show appreciation to frontline workers – especially Ms Masters, who has never been to a game before. Although their roles are often behind the scenes, the group said every worker in hospitals played a critical role in helping the community manage COVID-19. “I think the challenging part was that life kept moving, people still got sick, people still needed nursing home placements, people still passed away,” Ms Custer said. “Not only were we dealing with those really hard moments in life, it’s also putting on all the added pressure of COVID and this new normal.
“I know a lot of my patients are elderly and they were really socially isolated, and (I was) helping them adjust through that.” Ms Masters said the hardest part of working the pandemic was assisting families unable to be with loved ones.
“We had to talk with families a lot and support them over the phone, we did a lot of Telehealth because no family member could come up,” Ms Masters said. “We would have people in the ICU with the doctors and nurses, but we still had to get the information that these guys were telling us out to the families and then assist them if there was an issue to help them come up.”Ms Fichera said people not having their family members in the hospital affected their food intake, which was an added role staff took on. “All of the staff were providing that extra support to patients because family members couldn’t come up,” Ms Fichera said. Game Three is expected to set a world record for the biggest outdoor sporting event since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, as the 52,000-seat Suncorp Stadium edges closer to a sellout, with tickets still available ranging from $65 to $300. It will be the largest sporting event in the world since the start of the pandemic, with Game Two of the Bledisloe Cup in New Zealand understood to have had the previous biggest crowd at 46,049.
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