Mother-of-three, Sarah Cooper, who quit NHS nursing job to help refugees dies of Covid
A mother-of-three who quit her nursing job to help refugees settle in the Black Country has died of Covid.
Sarah Cooper, 42, was hailed as an ‘amazing, kind and caring person’ by one devastated colleague at the Wolverhampton Refugee and Migrant Centre as tributes flooded in after her death.
She was renowned on the Midlands music scene as Lady Coopz, and the airwaves have been filled with songs and shows dedicated to her.
Sarah died in Walsall Manor Hospital on Sunday, December 5 after she had contracted Covid-19.
Originally from Derby, Sarah moved to Walsall and worked as a community psychiatric nurse before joining the Wolverhampton Refugee and Migrant Centre where she helped migrants navigate the benefits system and register with doctors and other agencies.
Friends and family shared their thoughts on her warm and friendly nature, with special praise reserved for her ‘wonderful’ nursing ability.
Staff at the Refugee and Migrant Centre are distraught at the loss of their 42-year-old colleague, who passed away on Sunday, December 5.
The centre’s health and wellbeing manager, Mandy Mackereth, said: ‘Sarah was my “go to” person – I do not want to imagine life in this office without her.
‘She was just special. You could talk to her about anything and I’ve shared things with her I’ve never been able to tell anyone else… She has helped me so much.
‘She was so caring – caring was not something she did, it was an essential part of who she was, Sarah was an amazing soul, full of joy – her aura lit the room up!’
The father of Sarah’s twins, Peter Winson said: ‘It is hard to put into one sentence what an amazing and caring woman she was, she always thought of others before herself.’
Daughter Laila added: ‘She was an incredible woman. Loving, friendly, kind. She would go to the ends of the earth to help others and spent her working life as a psychiatrist nurse for the NHS.
‘As said by almost everyone who ever met her, she was the type of person you’d never forget due to the extent of her kindness. The type of woman I aspire to be.’
Sarah loved music, attending gigs and DJing at events across the Midlands as Lady Coopz.
On Reggae Space radio, an entire show was dedicated to her memory the Sunday after she died in Walsall Manor Hospital.
RIP Sarah.