NHS HEROES: FIGHTING TO SAVE OUR LIVES

Channel 4, 9.00pm

We regularly hear news reports of over-stretched hospital staff, a lack of PPE for those on the front line and the gallingly high numbers of workers who are succumbing to Covid-19. But as we stand on our doorsteps clapping every Thursday, it’s difficult to truly imagine what day-to-day life is like for those working in the NHS at the moment. This documentary is made up of video footage shot by doctors, nurses, paramedics, and even a chief executive, on their own smartphones, following them both at work and at home with their families.

Some of the decisions they have to make are unthinkable. With families shut out of intensive care, nurse Luke works on a ward where he has to choose whose hand to hold in their final moments, and who will have to die alone. ICU consultant Rony, meanwhile, struggles with the knowledge that his job puts his own life at risk, and that he would be leaving his children without a father if he were to die. It should all be a pertinent reminder to those feeling fatigued by lockdown, and are tempted to start meeting friends and family again, that so much more is at stake than boredom and loneliness. Catherine Gee

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