Doctors and nurses forced to hold breath due to lack of protective kit
Doctors and nurses are being forced to re-use masks and to hold their breath when carrying out medical procedures due to a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), it has been claimed.
Dr Rinesh Parmar, chairman of the Doctors’ Association UK, said a survey of medics had found that almost half say they have no eye protection at all, as he raised concerns about the safety of NHS frontline staff.
He also called for more to be done on testing, claiming doctors were going to centres to be checked, only to be turned away because their names were not on the list. Dr Parmar said in a TV interview yesterday that it had been two weeks since UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock pledged to “ensure that the right equipment gets to the right doctor, the right hospital, the right GP practice and we’ve seen that sadly that’s still not happening”.
He said that since last Thursday, his organisation has been surveying “hundreds” of doctors in more than 150 hospitals and had found that 43 per cent say they have no eye protection at all.
“Doctors have said that they’re having to reuse masks that should be single-use only, and that sometimes they’re talking to nurses and nurses are doing some of these highrisk procedures and they’re trying to hold their breath because they’re unsure and unaware of whether the mask they have been provided is going to offer them adequate protection.”
Dr Parmar added: “This is really harrowing to hear some of these stories across the NHS.”
He also said that alongside the safety of patients, the safety of the NHS workforce “is our paramount concern”.
He said: “Given the severe lack of PPE that is getting through, we’re all very concerned about potentially losing more colleagues.
“It’s sad to hear that we’ve already lost doctors and nurses in the line of duty, doing their very, very best for patients, and none of us wants to hear further stories of frontline staff losing their lives.”
On testing, Dr Parmar said it would be “welcome news” to see in practice that it is being increased, adding: “We’ve heard from doctors who have been sent to a testing centre only to be turned away and told that their name doesn’t appear on a list.
“These are individuals who are isolating, who may not currently have symptoms but may, for example, have family members with symptoms.”
Mr Hancock revealed yesterday that “8 per cent of NHS staff overall” are absent due to Covid-19 or related issues.
Also speaking on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday progamme, the Health Secretary insisted the number of absentee staff was not increasing.
He added: “Those figures are stable but we want to get them down, obviously, and one of the ways that we do that is by getting the amount of testing for NHS staff up.”
It comes as a survey by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) found only one-third of doctors are able to access coronavirus tests if they have symptoms. Only 31 per cent of members could get hold of Covid-19 swabs, while almost nine in ten (87.5 per cent) reported not being able to get a test for a member of their household displaying signs of the virus.
In addition, one in ten reported not being able to get tests for patients who meet the criteria.
The survey of more than 2,500 RCP members also found that a third suspected they had coronavirus symptoms, and almost a quarter (22 per cent) said they did not have access to the protective equipment they need to safely treat Covid-19 patients.
The president of the RCP Professor Andrew Goddard called the figures a “stark indication” of the situation facing NHS staff.
Last week the Scottish Government revealed that more than 14 per cent of NHS Scotland staff are off work.
About 41 per cent of those absences – equating to 9,719 people – are related to coronavirus, official figures showed. The total work force of NHS Scotland is about 166,000 people.
NHS Scotland said that nursing and midwifery staff had been hit hardest by absences related to coronavirus, with 4,354 off work.
Administrative services were hit second hardest, with 1,903 staff off.