Hospital overwhelmed as nurses resort to bin bags for protection
A MAJOR London hospital became the first in the country to be overwhelmed by coronavirus as exhausted nurses revealed they were wearing bin bags to protect themselves.
In a message to staff, Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow said it had no critical care beds left after a sudden surge in patients infected with Covid-19.
Six coronavirus patients have died at the hospital so far.
As pressure grows on hospitals across the UK, one senior health chief suggested a maximum age threshold of 60 might be placed on admissions.
The critical incident at Northwick Park was stood down after 24 hours as patients were transferred. But a senior nurse there told The Daily Telegraph last night the hospital would be “likely to run out of room again” within hours.
The nurse, who did not wish to be named, issued a plea for proper masks, gowns and gloves as she revealed staff were forced to wear clinical waste bags on their heads and feet for protection.
“We need proper PPE kit now, or nurses and doctors are going to die,” she said. “It’s as simple as that.”
“There are so many younger people here on ventilation – many with asthma, or diabetes. They can’t stop coughing, they just cough and cough and cough and they can’t help it.
“But there’s little we can do apart from try to help them breathe. Sometimes the body just gives up, and they die. We can’t save them. Even our own families don’t want us to come home in case we bring back the disease. There’s too many Covid patients coming in to cope with. We put on our brave smiles but inside we’re terrified.”
National health leaders have suggested the number of critical care beds needs to rise by several times.
Kingston Hospital in south-west London has been told to prepare for a “super-surge”, in which the number of coronavirus patients in need of critical care will increase by 600 per cent.
The hospital currently has 15 coronavirus patients in critical care, with a capacity to care for around 35, but expects the number to surge to around 95.
A senior director at another London acute trust told the Health Service Journal: “Given we’re in the low foothills of this virus, this is f------ petrifying. We are going to have to quickly agree some clinical thresholds for admissions to intensive care. This is what the Italians have had to do, and whether it’s set at 60 or whatever, we are going to have to do something similar.
“The trusts in outer London seem to be hit much worse. Barnet, Lewisham and Greenwich, Epsom and St Helier, North Middlesex and Hillingdon are all struggling.”
A spokesman for London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Northwick Park, said: “Critical care capacity for patients with coronavirus is being organised on a cross-london basis so hospitals and organisations work together to deliver the best possible care for patients and that is what has happened in this case.”