Pandemic has changed me, says paramedic as they tell of feeling ‘broken’
A NORTH EAST paramedic has spoken out about the “horrendous” pressures facing frontline NHS staff as the impact of the Omicron variant becomes clear.
This comes as the NHS faces high levels of staff sickness caused by Covid-19 along with increasing numbers of Covid-positive patients on wards.
The paramedic – working at the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) that over New Year told staff they should “consider asking patients to be transported to hospital by friends or family” in some cases – told how they had been “changed” by the trauma they’d witnessed.
In Gateshead, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital suffered long queues of emergency vehicles over Christmas. Five ambulances and an emergency paramedic car lined up there on Wednesday.
The paramedic said: “At the QE over Christmas, we were queuing up every time we took a patient. It is bed blocking, when the hospital is full. It is horrendous, they have nowhere to put patients.
“That’s where the problem lies. You have to wait your turn and it can take hours.
“That affects the waiting time for patients on emergency calls because ambulances are standing outside A&E.”
Bosses at the hospital have said it faces “ongoing challenges discharging patients” due to the pressures it is under, but said staff were going “above and beyond” to look after patients.
NEAS chiefs made the call to advise staff to tell some patients to make their own way to hospital due to high demand and low staffing levels caused by rising levels of coronavirus infection.
On Thursday, Wansbeck MP Ian Lavery said the Government – after minister Gillian Keegan said she had asked NHS England to review the decision – had “thrown NEAS under the bus”.
The paramedic said: “The first wave was terrible, you had people who could not breathe and they were dying in front of you. They were gasping their last, we were giving them oxygen but there was nothing you could do for them.
“I am a changed person because of what I have seen. Before Christmas, I was broken, running on adrenalin. I was not the only one. In the NHS, we tend to be forgotten. We really are on the frontline, the first to see Covid patients.”
The source added: “You may have a dementia patient, confused and upset, in the ambulance queuing up.
“We get messages via control if a hospital is full. You can travel miles to find a bed.”
NEAS is still asking patients suffering from suspected strokes or heart attacks to get relatives to drive them to hospital.
Medical director, Dr Mathew Beattie, said the service was dealing with increased demand, as well as staff sickness linked to the Omicron variant.
He added: “Under normal circumstances, we would move up and down our clinical escalation levels reactively as each point is triggered or demand reduces.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision, but when patients are waiting an average of an hour for an ambulance that should be responding within 18 minutes, there is a risk for them coming to harm if they cannot get to hospital quickly.”
No patient harm has been identified as a result of the decision, Dr
Beattie said.
A NEAS spokeswoman added: “We would like to thank our teams for their incredible work during the most challenging period ever for our service.
“We are currently experiencing some of the highest handover times we’ve ever seen, which is a symptom of the pressures that hospitals are facing with their own demand for beds.
“We continue to work closely with them to try to relieve demand in a bid to ensure patients are seen as quickly as possible.”
At the beginning of this week the QE Hospital brought in tight visiting restrictions in hope of limiting the spread of the Omicron variant.
Yvonne Ormston, chief executive at Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the QE, said: “We are seeing large numbers of very ill people as well as rising staff absences due to sickness or our staff needing to isolate.
“This is resulting in ongoing challenges in discharging patients – all of which leads to longer waits than we would like for patients to be seen and admitted.
“Our staff are continuing to work above and beyond to deliver care to our patients during a really difficult time.”
Across the North East and North Cumbria earlier this week, NHS bosses said the number of Covidpositive patients in our hospitals had risen 137% over Christmas and New Year – with staff absence due to the virus also up 135%.
Dr Neil Halford, medical director of the NHS’ North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care System (ICS), said: “All staff across the health system are working very hard to care for patients during what is a very difficult time and we thank each of them for their continued effort, flexibility and dedication.”