The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
NHS Scotland braced for Covid-19 ‘tsunami’
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A leading medic has said Scottish health workers are bracing for a “tsunami” of coronavirus patients as the first minister revealed contingency plans were being made to dramatically boost the number of hospital beds.
Nicola Sturgeon said the Scottish Government could adopt similar plans to the UK Government, which revealed yesterday it was opening a new “field hospital” at the ExCel centre in London.
Dr David Chung, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (Scotland), called for more ventilators and more testing for the virus as the Scottish death toll rose to 22.
He said NHS Scotland was in “the calm before the storm” and expected cases to escalate rapidly. “It’s like before a tsunami,” he said.
One of the country’s leading consultants has warned that Scotland faces a dramatic surge of coronavirus cases as he described working in the NHS as being like waiting for a tsunami.
Dr David Chung, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (Scotland), made the comparison as he called for more ventilators and more testing for the virus.
He was speaking as the first minister revealed contingency plans are in place to create makeshift hospitals to deal with a rise in cases.
Nicola Sturgeon said the Scottish Government could adopt similar initiatives to the UK Government, which revealed yesterday it was opening a new hospital at the ExCeL Centre in London.
The first minister said: “We have set out plans to increase not just the intensive care capacity in our NHS but the general bed capacity in the NHS.
“We’re working now across our NHS and across our NHS estate to look at that and where there is additional capacity that, if necessary, we can add to that.”
As the Scottish death toll rose to 22, Dr Chung said: “This is definitely the calm before the storm. It’s like before a tsunami when you are watching the wave go out and waiting for it to come back in. ”
According to Dr Chung, the dramatic explosion in cases experienced earlier this month in London is likely to be replicated in Scotland.
The number of people confirmed or suspected of having the virus and being treated in an intensive care unit (ICU) in hospitals in south London rose from seven on March 6 to 93 on March 17.
“The UK looks roughly like it might be a couple of weeks behind Italy in terms of the number of patients, and London seems to be ahead of the rest of the UK,” he said.
“It suddenly escalated (in London) and we are now preparing for something similar here. We think we are about a week behind them based on our numbers of cases.”
Reacting to UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s news that 3.5 million test kits have been bought for the NHS in England, Dr Chung argued more should be introduced in Scotland.
Scotland’s Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has said NHS Scotland will prioritise testing for health and social care staff.
But Dr Chung, an emergency consultant at Crosshouse Hospital, Kilmarnock, said there was a strong argument for a broader testing regime.
“There needs to be greater ventilator capacity, but we would also really welcome greater rapid testing capacity so we can identify those with the virus and trace their contacts and then isolate them,” he said.
“Testing allows you to delay the peak by isolating people.
“In some countries people are forced to isolate by being tagged or traced via their phones. I’m not sure we could do that in the UK. Even at this late stage an increase in testing would be helpful.
“Testing of (medical) staff is also vital. Without testing they might be selfisolating unnecessarily.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “There are no current plans for a new field hospital but this is being kept under review. Our priority is to boost our intensive care capacity in existing hospitals.
“We are well advanced in our work to double our intensive care unit capacity, and are working to expand that beyond 700 ICU beds as soon as can be achieved.
“We have a range of orders of ventilators being produced slated to come to Scotland over the coming weeks and are working with suppliers to do all that we can so that they are brought here as quickly as is humanly possible.”
Responding to Dr Chung’s comments on testing, Ms Freeman said: “We must make sure that our approach enables us to save as many lives as possible and protect the vulnerable, which is why we will continue to prioritise testing in hospitals, and why we need to prioritise available capacity to ensure that critical staff can return to work as soon as possible.
“Boards are being asked to prioritise testing the symptomatic household members of health and social care staff who are not experiencing symptoms themselves, but are in isolation because of those household members. “This will be an important step in ensuring we protect our frontline NHS and social care workers.”