Yahoo Finance Pensioner gets married in hospital ward while being treated for COVID
A pensioner has married her long-term partner while being treated for COVID-19.
Patricia, 88, wed Phillip, 78, at Coventry’s University Hospital on Friday.
The couple from Coventry got hitched after staff member Joanna Shakespeare asked for a registrar on Twitter.
A member of Coventry Register Office responded and the pair were then pictured tying the knot while surrounded by nurses.
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire Trust described it as "an afternoon we won't forget".
We are desperately seeking a registrar to perform a civil wedding ceremony on COVID ward @nhsuhcw @live_coventry can anyone urgently help?
— Joanna Shakespeare (@shakeyjs) January 28, 2021
Patricia and Phillip first met on a pantomime production more than 46 years ago, the BBC reported.
Dr Leigh Anne Brace and matron May Parsons were witnesses at the ceremony and other medical staff were bridesmaids, the report added.
The hospital said the couple, who used borrowed rings at the wedding, had changed plans after initially wanting to get married when the pandemic was over.
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire Trust posted a picture on Facebook of the couple on their wedding day.
Last week couple Elizabeth Kerr and Simon O'Brien also got married on a ward while both suffering from coronavirus.
They had been rushed to Milton Keynes University Hospital in the same ambulance when their oxygen levels fell dangerously low after contracting COVID-19.
The hospital was told they had been planning a wedding in June but they became so ill that staff scrambled to organise a wedding before it was too late.
But O'Brien's health worsened and doctors decided to move him to the ICU where he could receive mechanical ventilation.
They waited to intubate him long enough for the ceremony, which took place on 12 January, three days after the couple arrived in hospital.
Nurse Hannah Cannon was a witness and filmed the marriage for the couple's family and friends.
The catering department provided the cake.
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Cannon said: "With lots of teamwork... we were able to give them a wedding, not necessarily the wedding that they would have initially intended, but certainly something positive, remarkable and memorable for them to really hold on to.”
O'Brien's condition has since improved and the newlyweds were reunited on a COVID-19 ward where both are gradually recovering, although still receiving oxygen.
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