Staff are scared, we’re all stretched to limit...
Medic reveals life on Covid wards
A FRONTLINE doctor last night revealed the full extent of the growing hell inside hospitals dealing with the rampaging variant of the Covid-19 virus.
Dr Katie Sanderson, 33, told how surging admissions at her London trust are driving exhausted staff to breaking point as case numbers run out of control.
In a frightening interview, she tells of : Woefully inadequate levels of PPE that are leaving struggling staff “scared”.
Bewildered young patients with no medical history arriving seriously ill with the virus – leaving one dead.
Intensive care units so swamped victims who would normally be sent there are being cared for on wards.
Dr Sanderson, who works in acute medicine at a central London hospital we are not naming, also said soaring admissions combined with staff shortages were depriving patients of the care they deserved.
She told of the deepening NHS nightmare as experts warned the variant is spreading so fast hospitals nationwide could be overrun in weeks. Pressure has been so great on hospitals in London and the South East some patients have been moved out of the area to Yorkshire.
Now the capital’s weekly rate of cases is 858 per 100,000 people – double the UK average.
“Things are incredibly difficult now,” said a shattered Dr Sanderson. “Hospitals are doing everything they can – with all hands on deck, even flying patients out to other parts.
“We want to give everyone who gets Covid the best possible chance of survival. But every new preventable infection compromises this.
“In the end the limiting factor is staff, and ultimately more patients means less time for us as doctors to spend with each one.
“Our nurses are stretched ever thinner, to a point where people can’t be looked after how we’d want them to be. The capacity of intensive care units is important, but most patients aren’t looked after in ITU.
“We are caring for very sick people on wards that usually wouldn’t see patients this unwell.”
And Dr Sanderson says proper protection for our NHS heroes remains an issue. “Staff here are scared, because the PPE mandated for healthcare workers in the UK is woefully inadequate,” she said.
Staff in ITUs are better protected, and have lower levels of infection, illness and death rates – but those on the wards are exposed to high levels of the virus in a thin plastic apron, gloves, an ill-fitting fluidresistant surgical mask, and some eye protection. Dr Sanderson said: “As I put on and take off PPE, I think to myself ‘well it’s better than nothing’, and wonder how on Earth it has come to this, nine months in. Time enough to create a human life, but not to provide hundreds of thousands of workers with the wherewithal to protect theirs.”
She has witnessed a rise in intensive care patients in their 20s with no medical history. She said: “This week I
sat with a dying man, across the bed from his wife. She said to me, ‘How did this happen? We have been so careful?’ The answer is this new strain is incredibly infectious.”
The UK yesterday saw a record 57,725 confirmed cases. A further 445 deaths were also recorded within 28 days of a positive test.
But health experts fear this week’s figures will be “mild” compared to coming weeks, which could see Nightingale hospitals on standby.
An Imperial College London study has found the new variant is hugely more infectious, causing Covid transmissions to rocket even during the November lockdown.
Royal College of Physicians president Prof Andrew Goddard said: “Christmas will have a
Wife of a dying man told me ‘we’ve been so careful’
DR SANDERSON ON THE HORROR OF NEW VARIANT
big impact, the new variant is also going to have a big impact. I think the large numbers we’re seeing in the South East, in London, in south Wales, will be reflected over the next month or two in the rest of the country.”
He said fellow doctors were “really worried”. Prof Goddard added: “Be under no illusion about the unprecedented pressures we are facing. Numbers testing positive are rising in what is traditionally the busiest time of year for the NHS.
“We have hope around the corner as the vaccination programme kicks in but everyone has a responsibility to play their part.” Doctors’ fears worsened after intensive care units at three London hospitals were declared full this week.
Dr Stephen Webb, president of the Intensive Care Society said the NHS might simply run out of staff to treat patients needing Covid intensive care, through sickness or self-isolation.
He added: “The fact some hospitals are operating a one nurse to four patients ratio in ICU is very worrying.”
Just under half of all major trusts in England now have more Covid patients than during the peak of the first wave of the virus, according to the latest figures. Hospitals and ambulance services are seeing staff sickness tripled.
The Department of Health and Social Care told us: “UK guidance on the safest levels of PPE is written with NHS leaders and agreed by all four UK Chief Medical Officers. We will continue to supply PPE to the front line over the coming months, with almost 32 billion items ordered.
“Staff vacancies are falling with over 13,300 more nurses and 6,000 more doctors working in the last year.”