Her life in intensive care
“I am genuinely shocked that PHW is saying publicly and on the record that they are not aware of the government’s commitment that there is an ambition for 9,000 testing capacity by the end of April.
“I am shocked. You are the chief executive of PHW and that was a major, major government commitment.”
Health Minister Vaughan Gething said on March 21 that PHW was aiming for capacity for 9,000 tests by the end of April.
On April 3, First Minister Mark Drakeford said there would be 5,000 tests a day by the middle of the month and 9,000 a day by the end of the month.
But according to Dr Cooper, PHW was not consulted on this target and never indicated that such a testing
A&Es were having to reuse their masks instead of throwing them away.
“The department at Nevill Hall dealt with the pandemic as best they could due to the changes in guidelines, and the team are very friendly, dedicated and profressional.
“Their support for bank staff, like myself, and agency staff, like Cindy, is as good as it is with its permanent staff.”
Joanne, a mum-of-five, said she also feels for Cindy’s partner, Marjorie.
“It’s really awful for her partner as they aren’t able to see one another,” she said.
“But I guess it’s the same for so regime could ever be met.
Dr Cooper said she was not aware of the planned trajectory and that difficulties in the “global supply chain” had severely hampered efforts to get testing in place.
Dr Quentin Sandifer, executive director of Public Health Services and Medical Director at PHW, said they had currently set a capacity at 2,350 and this was growing.
He said it was important not to focus on a single number but from his professional point of view: “We need the right number of tests to achieve our strategic objectives that we have set at that point in the pandemic.”
Other countries did not pursue a target test number, but pursued a test strategy instead, he added.
Dr Sandifer said it expected to need in the range of 7,500 to 17,000 tests a many families.”
Joanne, who added that she has treated people as young as 30 with the condition, said it was “too soon” to ease the stay-at-home restrictions.
She added that she felt “lockdown fatigue” was also setting in among the Welsh population.
“The needs of people to see their friends and family is taking over from common sense,” she added.
A GoFundMe page has now been set up for Cindy by Joanne, and within less than a week more than £4,500 has been raised.
“People’s generosity has been overwhelming,” Joanne added. day to make contact tracing work when lockdown is lifted but that 10,000 tests a day would be a “realistic requirement”.
Dr Cooper told MSs that she expected Wales to soon have “comparable capacity” to England and Scotland based on population size.
Talking about the collapsed Covid19 testing deal with Roche, Dr Cooper said: “We were in discussions with Roche and that’s the understanding we had through discussions and email correspondence. That was in advance of it being brought into the UK allocation, which has happened with a couple of companies.”
It was after the UK Government stepped in that this allocation became a full 5,000 tests per day for the UK and not just Wales, she admitted.
Mr ap Iorwerth said: “Public Health
Wales’ confirmation today that the UK Government did step in to take 5,000 tests a day off Wales and to subsume them into the general testing pool raises serious and fundamental questions about how UK Government views Wales. What we’ve seen is the gazumping of a deal negotiated for the benefit of the Welsh public, and Labour ministers were too weak to stand up to UK Government.
“Now we still have days where fewer than 1,000 a day are tested, compared with the 9,000 target promised by the Welsh Government. In a separate twist to a remarkable health committee meeting, the startling admission to me by Public Health Wales’ chief executive that she wasn’t aware of the 9,000a-day target also begs the question, what on earth is going on with Welsh Government’s handling of this crisis?”