Our heroes of 2021

This year has tested us beyond measure, but we’ve seen everyday Australians rise to its challenges in courageous, heartfelt and inspiring ways. The Weekly pays tribute to some of those everyday heroes.

- SAMANTHA TRENOWETH & ALLEY PASCOE

Scrub Choir

Songs to heal the soul

“As soon as we began to play, people would stop and say thank you, and sometimes cry.”

Dr Mya Cubitt is an emergency physician, an acute medical unit consultant, and the mother of three lively primary and preschool-aged kids. She smiles with her heart and her pale blue eyes. She has worked through the pandemic at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, she’s been a COVID patient herself, and now she’s trying to explain how these past two years have affected her.

“There’s this graph of the emotional phases of a pandemic, and it goes like this,” she begins, waving her arms up and down like a heaving sea. “That’s my experience. There are moments when you have this anticipatory anxiety and there are moments when you feel like a true hero, mainly because you connect with another human being and make them feel like you care. There are moments when you just want to curl up in a corner and rock, and there are other moments when you feel like you’re starting to rebuild, and you might be able to face it again. It just keeps going.

“I worked in the emergency department and also in the acute medical unit, where we were looking after patients with confirmed COVID. I think some of the hardest days of my career have come from working on that ward, and having Scrub Choir quite frankly saved me.”