‘Vicious winter’ for exhausted NHS staff
“I HAVE never seen the hospital running at this intensity in the entire 13 years of my senior medical career,” Dr Karen Daly tells me as I put on protective gear before entering the Covid ward.
Virus hospital admissions and deaths are lower now than at this time last year and the success of the vaccine rollout is undoubtedly a cause for celebration.
But as winter approaches, NHS staff – already exhausted from the toughest 18 months they have ever faced – now have more to worry about than just Covid-19.
The Daily Express visited St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London. Dr Daly is one of the consultants overseeing care for 24 patients on coronavirus wards.
There are a further eight patients in intensive care. They typically fall into two categories. She said: “We have the frail elderly who are usually vaccinated and some of them have had boosters.
“For them, Covid is a relatively mild illness but because of their general underlying condition, it tips them over the edge and some don’t survive. The other cohort are unvaccinated young people.”
The number of patients is far lower than the peak of around 300 on wards and 100 in intensive care during the January wave.
But Dr Jane Evans, another consultant, fears the knock-on effect of cases rising.
St George’s has made good progress in reducing waits for planned treatment but if too many beds are filled by Covid patients, operations will have to be cancelled.
Medics are also preparing for added complications. Patients with Covid or flu types A and B all have to be quarantined separately.
Dr Evans said: “What you never want is to mix any of those patients together because to have Covid and flu, or flu and flu, is disastrous.
“Trying to set up three isolation cohorts is really challenging.”
In the cardiac intensive care unit, staff are caring for those with heart and chest problems and isolated Covid sufferers. Dr Dominic Spray, clinical director of adult critical care, said 90 per cent of those with the virus are unvaccinated.
But in a side room, we glimpse a vaccinated Covid patient in his 70s, sedated and on a ventilator, surrounded by tubes and monitors.
It is not clear how many doses he had but it is a stark reminder that infections do happen and boosters are vital for the most vulnerable.
There are plans to safely expand capacity, but again the worry is if demand grows, operations requiring an ICU bed for recovery will be delayed. Dr Spray said: “If we have someone who takes up 30 days with Covid, that’s 15 or 30 heart operations or cancer operations we can’t do.That’s quite frustrating.
“We’ll cope with what comes our way but it does impact on those waiting for intensive care.”
Matron Tammy Stracey says the