‘Tens of thousands’ feared to have got virus on wards
AS many as 8,000 people caught Covid-19 after being taken to hospital with other conditions, experts now fear.
Figures to be released later this month are expected to show hundreds of those patients then died as a result.
But the total could be three times higher with deaths in the thousands, say campaigners.
Figures on the number of patients infected in hospital since lockdown will finally be published later this month, after Shadow Health spokesman Justin Madders spent weeks asking for them.
He said: “The public have a right to know if hospitals are doing their job. Hospitals have a duty to control infection.”
NHS sources say out of 138,000 Covid-19 patients treated in hospital, six per cent had caught it on the wards.
At one trust, East Kent, the rate is said to be twice that.
John Edmunds, professor of epidemiology and population health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, is on the Government SAGE group. He warned: “The six per cent figure is almost certainly an underestimate.”
And Oxford University’s Ben Cooper, who also advises SAGE, believes “tens of thousands” caught Covid while in hospital for other illnesses.
He is working with other leading pandemic specialists and says it will take months to establish a full picture.
Hannah Brady of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, who lost her dad to the virus, said answers were needed on hospital failures.
She said: “The NHS has been negligent with the people it should have been protecting.
“We need an inquiry led by a judge – common sense went out of the window.”
Labour’s Sarah Owen, of the Commons Health Committee, said: “Accurate data is a vital weapon. Lives depend on this. The Health Secretary should give healthcare staff all the information they need.”
Have you lost a loved one to Covid-19 acquired in hospital? Contact the Sunday Mirror newsdesk on 0207 293 3601.
, 21, had tested negative before being taken to King’s College Hospital, London, in March to await a liver transplant. Five days later, her family were told two of her nurses had Covid-19. A test showed she had it too. Katie, of Burgess Hill, West Sussex, could not have a transplant until she was clear. After 11 days, she was declared “no longer transplantable”. Katie died 36 hours later, on April 11.
The family of Matt Pears , 48, say he got Covid-19 while in hospital being treated for blood cancer. Matt tested positive after five weeks in Royal Derby Hospital. His sister Kathryn, 50, said: “He was in a side room but due to the hospital needing to reconfigure he went to an open ward. He was terrified.” He got the virus in mid-April and died after three weeks in ICU, with wife Amanda by his side.