A FORMER army doctor from Staindrop has revealed how a charity scheme has not only helped her through the Covid-19 lockdown but has also found her a new friend.
Jo Ferguson has retired from the Royal Army Medical Corps after 30 years’ service.
She signed up to the Women’s Royal Army Corps association’s Buddy Buddy scheme in the hope of providing support to another woman at the start of the pandemic. What she did not realise at the time was that she would strike up a friendship with 70-year-old fellow veteran Jan Downie who lives hundreds of miles away.
The scheme works by partnering up pairs of veteran women to help to ease feelings of loneliness that have particularly affected older people who are shielding.
Dr Ferguson, a veteran of Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, said: “Being buddies with Jan is great.
“For someone I’ve never met, we have a good gossip and get on really well – I call us the ‘Jan and Jo Phone Show’ We talk every week and it is very natural.
“Jan is super chatty and if I didn’t know she’d done military service or been an army wife, I would still be able to tell. We Army people have a lot of similarities.
“The perks of Buddy Buddy scheme are that it provides a fixed point in the week where you get outside of yourself. This is so valuable right now, particularly for people feeling penned in. The scheme allows you to find out all about someone else, which takes you ‘out’ a bit without actually going out of the house. it’s ‘safe socialising’ and I think it’s great.”
A keen duathlete, the 52-year-old is now training to become a personal trainer so she can continue to help people with their health and wellbeing. Apart from dealing with a a variety of issues in war zones, ranging from minor illnesses to major incidents where rapid evacuation was required for surgery to life and limb, she also treated troops in Hong Kong, Northern Ireland, Europe and Canada.
She finished her military career as commanding officer of the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine.
When not chatting to her buddy, Dr Ferguson serves in the dale as a volunteer NHS responder and has also signed up to help administer Covid vaccinations in the area.
Female veterans who would like to join the scheme can visit wracassociation.org.
