The parents of the Kiwi nurse who played a part in British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 recovery say they’re “exceptionally proud” of their daughter.
Caroline and Mike McGee told 1 NEWS their daughter Jenny told them she had just had “the most surreal time in her life”.
“It makes us feel exceptionally proud,” Ms McGee said.
“It doesn’t matter what patient she’s looking after, this is what she does.
“And I just find it incredible that she [and] any nurse can do this for 12 hours.”
Ms McGee said they didn’t know their daughter was treating Mr Johnson until he was out of the intensive care unit.
“Obviously, we knew that he was in St Thomas’ Hospital, it was all over the news… but, our daughter’s very professional.”
She said nursing ran in the family, with Jenny’s grandmother also a nurse.
Mr McGee added: “Over the years, she has always told us that her job is one-on-one nursing with very critically ill people.
“That means she’s there all the time for the 12 hours. So, once we’d heard that Boris Johnson had gone into intensive care, it was obvious that at some stage Jenny would possibly run into him and give him the same level of care that she would’ve given anybody else.”
He said Jenny was in New Zealand last month and reassured them the British National Health Service “was ready and trained for the Covid-19 outbreak”.
“She just assured us not to be worried… if anything, she was actually looking forward, if that’s the right word, to being involved,” he said.
“She’s reasonably confident she can keep herself safe, so we just have to trust.
“She’s more worried about us keeping ourselves safe back here in NZ.”
Mr Johnson publicly thanked Jenny in a video posted on social media this morning.
“I hope they won’t mind if I mention in particular two nurses who stood by my bedside for 48 hours when things could have gone either way. They are Jenny from New Zealand – Invercargill on the South Island to be exact – and Luis from Portugal – near Porto,” Mr Johnson said. He was discharged from hospital yesterday.
"And the reason in the end my body did start to get enough oxygen was because for every second of the night they were watching and they were thinking and they were caring and making the interventions I needed.”
Mr Johnson was first admitted last weekend after struggling to shake off the virus and was placed in intensive care after his condition worsened.
Ms Ardern said she had sent a personal message to Jenny McGee on Facebook thanking her. (Source: Other)
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also paid tribute to Jenny’s work alongside the country’s healthcare workers today in a press conference.
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