Real power to beat this virus in all our hands

With every breath Boris Johnson takes being analysed by 24-hour news, it is time to demystify the intensive care unit (ICU). Rather than being a place, the ICU is more like a system.

It is the teamwork between nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and countless others, using machines and drugs at just the right time, in the right patients, that helps to save lives.

The ICU offers three things – monitoring, treatments and care.

Detailed monitoring, using a device on your fingertip to measure the oxygen linked to your blood every second, or thin plastic tubes in your arteries allowing blood samples to be taken to show the dissolved gases and salts in your body, allows treatments to be used at just the right time.

Using different face masks, which blow in air under pressure to help with breathing, may help and prevent the need for a ventilator. Yet, for a tiny minority of Covid patients, very inflamed lungs need more help. Going onto a ventilator typically needs anaesthetic and mucle relaxant drugs.

These “invasive” ventilators can squeeze in air under different pressure patterns. Although treatments are important, so too is care.

Even if treatments stop working, care does not.

The founder of the NHS, Nye Bevan, famously said, “The purpose of power is to give it away”. Yes the ICU is important, but the real power lies in the measures that you and your family can take. You, by reading this, have the power to save lives. You don’t need ventilators or drugs or an ICU.

You simply need to stay at home, wash your hands and listen to the public health advice. You have that power. Thank you for using it.