NHS BACKLOG
HEALTH SERVICE EMBATTLED FEARS FOR MUM FLARE-UP PERIL
cancers are being missed every week as a result and many patients’ operable cancers will become inoperable if they remain undetected.
Another 400 cancers a week are being missed because breast, cervical and bowel screening is suspended. And hospitals have shelved ops on early-stage cancers.
Professor Karol Sikora warned that the crisis could spark 50,000 extra cancer deaths. He said: “These are collateral damage in the war against coronavirus.”
Doctors also fear
AN NHS nurse who begged Boris Johnson not to cancel life-saving ops for non-covid patients now fears her cancerstricken mum will not survive the pandemic.
Jacqui
Hale, a nurse for 25 years, wrote to the
Prime
Minister a month ago over fears for seriously ill patients at the Chapel
End Surgery in Nuneaton,
Warks, where she is an advanced nurse practitioner.
She told him: “We cannot cancel operations that are lifesaving.
Please, I beg of you, look at this.” He never replied.
Since then her mum Katherine Lauro – who was told her oesophageal
people are dying needlessly from emergencies because they are scared of going to hospital because of Covid-19.
The number of patients seeking treatment at A&E has fallen by almost 70 per cent compared with last year. Heart attack and stroke admissions have halved in some parts. The number of those dying at home soared by 51 percent in the four weeks to April 10. Professor Martin James, consultant stroke physician at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, said:
“Stroke is still a medical cancer was treatable when a 1cm tumour was discovered in December – has deteriorated after chemotherapy, due a month ago, was delayed.
Tests on Thursday revealed the disease has advanced from Stage 2 to Stage 3.
Retired councillor Katherine,
74, of Donisthorpe, Derbys, said: “I’m scared that the longer I wait the more aggressive it will become. My body is getting weaker.”
The great-gran is now “in pain and unable to eat”. She has a provisional date of April 30 to start chemo – but fears this could be pushed back again.
Jacqui, 58, said: “I fear cancer and malnutrition will kill my mum.”
emergency. If you miss the opportunity to receive emergency treatment, brain damage is inevitable.
“We have patients who have had a stroke at home and have struggled on, knowing hospitals are under pressure. I met a patient the other day who had lost her power of speech.”
Dr Sonya Babu-narayan, associate medical director of the British Heart Foundation, added: “Heart attacks don’t stop for a pandemic.”
And consultant psychiatrist Andrew Molodynski, mental health lead for the British Medical Association, said the suicide rate – which rose in the wake
BANK worker Aimee Emery has multiple sclerosis – and fears she could go blind because she can’t have treatment that reduces flareups of her illness.
The 23-year-old, who has lost her sight during previous flare-ups, was due to have immunosuppressant drug alemtuzumab
of the 2008 financial crisis – is likely to go up again as jobs are lost and many firms have to fold.
He said: “We expect to see rises in depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. I don’t know how we’ll cope. Therapy waiting lists are well over a year in some places and that will easily double.”
An NHS spokesman said: “While NHS staff have pulled out all the stops to manage coronavirus cases they have continued to work hard administered via a drip in hospital. But because it is a type of chemotherapy that would attack her immune system and make her a highrisk for contracting Covid19, it has been postponed.
Aimee, of Dagenham, Essex, said: “I’m scared about what will happen if I have a relapse.” to ensure patients can safely access services. Next week we will set out new guidance on redeploying some of the treatment capacity that was created while the number of Covid-19 patients rose sharply.
“A public information campaign is reminding people the NHS remains open for business. It is important that noncovid-19 patients can still safely access care and treatment.”