Hartlepool surgery staff sing to welcome nurse on return to work after overcoming five-week battle with Covid-19

Sue Dixon, who works at Seaton Surgery, was serenaded by co-workers singing along to Welcome Home by Peters and Lee shorty after stepping into the surgery for the first time in weeks.

The joyous moment was filmed on a phone and shared on the surgery's Facebook page.

Sue, 46, was treated in hospital for about a week for coronavirus after she began getting an irritable cough on Christmas Day and soreness to her skin on Boxing Day.

Over the following week, they got worse with severe nausea and sickness leading to her being admitted to the University Hospital of North Tees on New Year’s Eve.

Sue said: “When the ambulance came out my oxygen saturation level was 86% which is quite low. I was put on oxygen but it continued to drop to 80 at one point.

"The consultant put me on a CPAP [breathing] machine. It was very scary and I did have a couple of panic attacks.”

Sue started to recover after being given trial drugs and plasma.

"I got over it thank goodness,” she said. “The staff were amazing. They couldn’t have done any more for me.”

Related story: Hartlepool Covid patient who turned blue with virus hails effects of plasma treatment

She said she now feels “100% better” but still gets a little out of breath sometimes.

Sue believes she may have caught Covid from her youngest son Nathan, 16, who tested positive for the virus but did not have any symptoms.

Her husband Jonathan and mum Christine Dixon also contracted it.

She had been waiting for the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine when she fell ill as she could not have the Pfizer jab due to allergies.

Sue, also mum to Adam, 21, and who lives in Seaton, said she is glad to be back at work at the surgery on Station Lane.

She said of the colleagues singing Welcome Back: "It was lovely. I was surprised but it made me smile.”

Staff altered the lyrics of the chorus slightly from ‘Welcome home, welcome’ to ‘Welcome home, Sue’.

Sue added: "They’re a lovely bunch of people. We’re just like a little family.”

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