Hospitals boss - This is a golden chance to save lives in county

THE county has a ‘golden chance’ to save lives during the second lockdown, the boss of the county’s two main hospitals said.

Deborah Lee was outlining how her teams at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and Cheltenham General Hospital are preparing to fight coronavirus during the winter months.

Speaking in a live webchat on the Gloucestershire Live Facebook page, Ms Lee said: “It is probably by fortune, maybe the management, that Gloucestershire is going to have a chance to change the path of the virus in a way that sadly people in the North did not.”

The webchat, chaired by former Citizen editor Ian Mean, saw Ms Lee explain that the county has “low rates” of hospital admissions which are “rapidly increasing”.

She said the number of patients in beds across the hospitals last week was 13, which then rose to 33 later in the week.

Senior intensive care consultant Dave Windsor later confirmed in the webchat there were around 40 patients in hospital with Covid-19 as of yesterday.

Ms Lee said: “If we look at our position, rates are fortunately low but they are increasing rapidly.

“Indeed the path that we are following here in Gloucestershire looks frighteningly similar to the path that played out in the North West and the North East.

“Small examples but there were 13 patients in our beds when I went on leave a week ago, 33 patients when I came back. Rates are increasing rapidly, yes off a small baseline.

“For me it is really, really important that this is not in vain. My goodness I know what those downsides are of a local, regional or national lockdown, but then we do not reap the benefits.

“That would be the real travesty. This is a golden chance to save lives and keep the NHS open for everyone,”