Nurses who used bin bags as protection all test positive
THREE NHS nurses who were forced to wear bin bags because of a lack of protective equipment have all since tested positive for coronavirus, The Daily Telegraph has been told.
The three women were pictured last month wearing clinical waste bags on their heads and feet at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, the first hospital in the country to declare a critical incident after being overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients.
Staff said they were contracting the virus from their patients because bosses had failed to provide them with proper masks, caps and aprons.
Nursing leaders warned that a lack of protective equipment continued to “fundamentally compromise” care, despite repeated assurances from the Government.
According to a senior source at Northwick Park, the three nurses pictured wearing the bin bags were each diagnosed with coronavirus at a North London testing centre last week.
On one ward, more than half of staff were found to have contracted the disease including the matron and ward manager, it is understood. Staff at the hospital have been warned not to speak to the press about continuing shortages of personal protective equipment, the source added.
Dame Donna Kinnair, the Royal College of Nursing’s chief executive, said nurses had to share equipment, buy their own or reuse kit, writing in a letter to Jeremy Hunt, the parliamentary health select committee chairman: “Our safety and ability to care for patients is being fundamentally compromised.”
Behind closed
doors Head gardener Martin Duncan tends to flowers for the annual Arundel Castle Tulip Festival in West Sussex. More than 80,000 plants are in full bloom at the stately home and are being shared with the public in regular online video and photo updates during the coronavirus lockdown. More than 120 varieties of tulips are in flower at the castle, creating an explosion of colour throughout its extensive walled gardens.