Italian doctor: Our hospitals are on their knees

A TOP Italian doctor has admitted the coronavirus outbreak has driven his country’s hospitals to the brink of collapse – and warned colleagues in other nations not to underestimate the threat.

The doctor, a leading cancer specialist, described how Italian hospitals are ‘crowded with sick people’ and struggling to cope, sparking fears the NHS will also soon become overwhelmed.

The NHS has the lowest number of hospital beds per 1,000 people of any European country, prompting concerns intensive care units and general wards will quickly be swamped if there is a large influx of coronavirus patients.

The virus’s death toll in Italy leapt to 233 yesterday after the largest daily increase in fatalities since the outbreak began.

Officials said 49 people had died in 24 hours, while more than 4,600 cases have been reported in total.

Alarmingly, doctors in Italy report that about ten per cent of those testing positive for the disease are being admitted to intensive care units, putting immense pressure on the hospitals.

In a stark email to colleagues across Europe, the doctor, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote: ‘It is true that most patients have flu- l i ke symptoms and recover, but there is a significant proportion – not only old people – who develop acute unexpected severe respiratory distress requiring breath assistance and intubation [inserting an airway tube].’ The doctor said he first thought the Italian government overreacted to coronavirus, but that almost all the intensive care beds in the Milan region were now filled with virus patients, so that ‘other normal medical conditions cannot be adequately managed’.

‘Hospitals are crowded with sick people, while emergency rooms are empty because people are afraid to go there,’ he wrote, adding that outpatient visits in the region’s hospitals were likely to be cancelled from tomorrow as colleagues around the country reported an ‘alarming shortage of doctors and nurses, making them unable to cover duties and shifts’.

‘Where I work, routine surgeries – for breast, kidney and colon cancers and other procedures – are postponed or reduced because of the shortage of intensive care assistance,’ he wrote. ‘My concern is whether – and for how long – our system can tolerate this.’

With just 2.5 hospital beds per 1,000 people, the UK lags far behind the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 4.3.

Lifesaving equipment such as ventilators will have to be drawn in from operating theatres, while sick patients may have to be sent by ambulance to intensive care beds miles away.

Dr Nick Scriven, of the Society For Acute Medicine, said: ‘Hospital bed occupancy now rarely drops below 90 per cent so any surge will cause problems.’

Under the ‘first phase’ of the NHS’s strategy, routine operations will be cancelled to free-up beds and hospitals will open ‘ ghost wards’ – rows of beds in areas not usually used as wards staffed with locum doctors and nurses.

‘My worry is staff,’ Dr Scriven added. ‘A large proportion of NHS staff are young with families. If schools close they’re going to have to look after their children. There’s also the risk of staff illness.’

But Ganesh Suntharalingam, president of the Intensive Care Society, said: ‘The UK is starting from slightly further behind other countries because we have less intensive care beds per head of population. That means to cope, we will need to adapt.

‘We have the hardware – not necessarily in intensive care – but we have life-support equipment in other areas. We will have to work flexibly with other teams to provide the right levels of care. I’m confident we can achieve that.’

‘One in ten victims go into intensive care’