A LUDLOW health worker who has been struggling with Covid says that her dying father was released from hospital with the virus.

Tracey Huffer, who works at Station Drive surgery and is also Shropshire councillor for Ludlow East has seen her family hit hard by the disease.

She caught the illness despite having been amongst the first people in the town to be vaccinated although she believes that the illness would have been even worse without the jab.

Her husband Richard, a farmer and Shropshire councillor for Clee, who has health issues that make him especially vulnerable, then went down with Covid days before he was due for a vaccination.

Mrs Huffer’s father John, who had advanced Oesophageal cancer, was admitted to the Royal Shrewsbury hospital for a blood transfusion.

On arrival and during his stay he tested negative for the virus and had a test on the day that he was sent home.

The following day Mrs Huffer had a call to say that test had been positive.

Sadly her father died a few days later.

“He died with Covid and not because of Covid. It was the cancer that killed him although the virus did not help,” added Mrs Huffer.

She said the front line staff at the hospital had been ‘wonderful’ as had the Macmillan team that had been supporting the family.

Mrs Huffer became ill and several weeks later is still feeling very unwell.

But Mrs Huffer was vaccinated on the first day that it became available in Ludlow because of her work.

Despite then going on to get the illness she absolutely wants people to have the vaccination if it is offered.

“People need to get the jab,” she said.

“I am sure that I would have been much worse if I had not had it.”

Nevertheless, Mrs Huffer says that at one point the drop in her oxygen levels was ‘scary.’

The devastation that the virus has caused her family is an all too a familiar one over the past year.