WATCH: PE hospital heroes record upbeat song in response to negative publicity

A vibrant and happy song performed by Port Elizabeth doctors and nurses at the frontline of fighting the Covid-19 plague has quickly spread across Nelson Mandela Bay and the world.

Featuring the Covid-ICU team at Livingstone Hospital, and involving surgeons, emergency physicians and other healthcare professionals, a music video of the song was made to lift the spirits of the hardworking hospital heroes which were crushed by widespread negative media reports about Livingstone and Dora Nginza Hospital, and to honour the memory of their esteemed colleague Prof Lungile Pepeta who died of Covid-19 complications on August 7.

Andre Strydom, a clinical technologist in the Livingstone Covid-ICU unit said as he was driving home one day in the middle of the toughest time of dealing with the pandemic and the negative media reports, he felt the Lord saying to him that the team members were not supermen but what they did, they did with love to the best of the ability He had given them despite challenges such as equipment and personnel shortages.

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At home he penned words and set music to the song. The inspired project flowed easily and he told his wife, Lizette, that he planned to record it in his hobby music studio using his colleagues. He then recruited Rebel Media Guys to make a music video filmed in the hospital and including drone footage at Sardinia Bay.

Collaborating in the making the song was in itself a brave response by the weary heroes. Many of them had never been in a recording studio before. Strydom commented: “We were so unified through this process and trust that the world gets to see a little beyond the anxiety of the Covid-19 pandemic with our song.”

Forty eight hours after it was posted to Youtube the song had had more than 12 000 views and had reached the BBC which publicised the earlier negative “hospitals of horrors” reports about the situation at the two PE state hospitals.

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