Health board offers first jab to all over-18s
AWELSH health board has confirmed it has arranged Covid vaccine appointments for its entire adult population.
In a tweet yesterday morning, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board said letters should be arriving by the end of this week to those over 18 who have not yet had their first dose.
It means all adults in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan will have been offered an appointment before Sunday, May 30, at the latest.
The initial Welsh Government target was the end of July.
A spokesperson said: “We have now arranged appointments for all of our adult population aged 18 and over to receive their first vaccine by May 30. Appointment letters should hit doorsteps by the end of this week.”
Cardiff and Vale UHB is also urging people who may have missed their appointments to complete this form or to call 02921 841234.
On Sunday, Wales reached the impressive milestone of vaccinating two million adults against coronavirus. Some 2,027,803 over-18s have now received their first dose and 917,431 the full course.
Speaking this week, First Minister Mark Drakeford said children could be offered the coronavirus vaccine later this year should it be deemed safe.
He said some vaccines are beginning to obtain a license to supply doses for children as young as 12 years old in certain countries.
Speaking to ITV Wales’ political programme Sharp End, he said: “If there is a vaccine that gets that license for use here in Wales, then I think we are very likely to want to take advantage of that.
“It may be that, later this year even, we will be able to have a programme in our secondary schools of offering those young people a vaccination.
“[This] would make schools even safer than they are now and might allow us to lift some of the other restrictions that we have – wearing of masks in classrooms all the time for example – that inevitably makes that learning experience less comfortable than it would otherwise be.”
Dr Gill Richardson, Wales’ vaccine lead, said Wales was now planning with colleagues across the four nations to see whether autumn vaccine boosters will be needed.
Meanwhile, Wales recorded no new coronavirus-related deaths and just 32 confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, latest figures show.
The data, published by Public Health Wales (PHW) yesterday, brings the overall number of positive cases since the pandemic began to 212,272.
The seven-day infection rate across Wales as a whole now stands at 9.5, based on the number of new infections confirmed per 100,000 population in the week up to May 13, a drop on the 10.2 in the previous figures.
Wales’ infection rate had been rising, albeit only slightly, for eight days straight.
It was the first time since the peak of the second wave in December last year that the infection rate had increased steadily over the course of a week. But these latest figures have bucked that trend.
The percentage of Covid tests coming back with positive test results has also dipped again to 0.9% – significantly below the key benchmark of 5% and has been fluctuating around the same level for the last three weeks.
The case rate in Newport, where seven-day infection rates are the highest in Wales, has also fallen back slightly to 29.7 cases per 100,000, although 2.3% of tests were returned as positive between May 7 and 13. The second most is Cardiff with 1.7%.
Hospital admissions remain low. An average of 14 people a day are being admitted to hospital with confirmed or suspected Covid-19. And the number of general and acute hospital beds occupied by “confirmed” Covid-19 patients was 17 on Monday, May 17.
Swansea Bay UHB had the most with six, followed by Hywel Dda with five, Cwm Taf Morgannwg and Cardiff and Vale with two each and Aneurin Bevan and Betsi Cadwaladr with one each.
To put this into context, NHS staff were dealing with upwards of 1,600 confirmed patients during late December and January and were struggling to cope.
There were just three Covid patients in invasive ventilated beds in intensive care on Monday, May 17, all of which were in Cardiff and Vale UHB.
At the height of the first wave of the pandemic in April, 2020, there were as many as 164 coronavirus patients needing the highest level of breathing support in intensive care.
HEALTH workers across Wales are appealing to the public to back their campaign for a “proper pay rise” this summer.
Hospital porters, clerical workers, cleaners, nurses, healthcare assistants and other NHS staff will be urging people to contact their local MPs this week to keep up the pay pressure on the government.
Health workers in Scotland will soon receive a wage rise of at least 4% backdated to December. However, it remains to be seen whether their counterparts across the UK will be as fortunate.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson insists everyone else must wait until the NHS pay review body reports which won’t be until at least July.
NHS pay in Wales is a devolved issue, but the Welsh Government could only afford to provide a decent wage rise if it receives additional funding from Westminster.
A substantial NHS England pay rise would provide that equivalent money in the devolved budget to Wales.
Unison said health workers were due a pay rise at the beginning of last month – almost seven weeks ago. The union has been making the case for a minimum wage boost of at least £2,000 for staff. The UK Government’s suggested an increase of just 1%.
By now, NHS staff would be £250 better off if Unison’s pay claim had been implemented on April 1.
Instead, Unison claims staff feel increasingly taken for granted, worn out by the pandemic and overwhelmed at tackling the Covid backlog of cancelled appointments and operations. As a result, many may soon leave the NHS altogether.
Although there’s now significantly fewer Covid patients in hospital than at the January peak, it is claimed the pressure is still very much on staff.
Unison Cymru Wales lead officer for health Paul Summers said: “NHS staff have given their all during the pandemic. They’ll continue to do so to clear the backlog caused by Covid.
But despite their incredible efforts, the UK Government says a meagre 1% rise is all they’re worth.
“Wales Conservative politicians like to say NHS pay is the concern of the Welsh Government, but there is no way Wales could afford a big boost to healthcare workers’ wages without Westminster providing substantial additional funding.
“A decent wage increase paid soon could stop staff feeling unloved and taken for granted, and perhaps be enough to persuade many thinking of walking to stay.”
An Aneurin Bevan University Health Board healthcare worker said: “The pandemic’s been absolutely heartbreaking and exhausting. I contracted the virus myself and brought it home to my family just by doing the job I love.
“It has been emotionally and physically the toughest year of our lives. We do not get the gratification we all so desperately need and deserve. Clapping won’t put food on the table. Clapping won’t save our mental health.”
Staff in Unison branches based in NHS hospitals, ambulance stations and clinics across Wales will be using social media and taking part in socially distanced events from now until Wednesday.
The appeal comes as a nurse who looked after Boris Johnson when he was seriously ill with Covid-19 has revealed she has resigned, citing the Government’s 1% pay offer and its lack of respect for the profession.
Jenny McGee, who cared for the Prime Minister in intensive care at St Thomas’ Hospital in central London, told how she found the Prime Minister in April 2020 when she arrived at work.
She told a Channel 4 documentary: “All around him there was lots and lots of sick patients, some of whom were dying.
“I remember seeing him and thinking he looked very, very unwell.
“He was a different colour really. “It’s so surreal, that’s the Prime Minister. They are very complicated patients to look after and we just didn’t know what was going to happen.”
In the documentary, The Year Britain Stopped, to be broadcast on May 24, she said that when she looks back on her period with Mr Johnson she thinks it was a “weird” time.
Ms McGee, who is originally from New Zealand, said she had been asked to take part in a “clap for carers” event at a garden party at Downing Street last July.
She and another nurse had been invited along by the Prime Minister to celebrate 72 years of the NHS.
After his release from hospital, Mr Johnson had praised Ms McGee and nurse Luis Pitarma, saying: “The reason in the end my body did start to get enough oxygen was because for every second of the night, they were watching.”
Ms McGee said of the request to join the clap event: “It would have been a really good photo opportunity.
“You know, kind of like Boris and his NHS friends, but I wanted to stay out of it.
“Lots of nurses felt that the Government hadn’t led very effectively, the indecisiveness, so many mixed messages.
“It was just very upsetting. “Yes, we have put ourselves on the line and we have worked so incredibly hard, and there’s a lot of talk about how we’re all heroes and all that sort of stuff.
“But at the same time, I’m just not sure if I can do it.
“I don’t know how much more I’ve got to give to the NHS. We’re not getting the respect and now pay that we deserve. I’m just sick of it. So I’ve handed in my resignation.”
Later in the documentary, Ms McGee described working at the hospital in the run-up to the festive period.
“Leading up to Christmas, I could just not believe what I was seeing, it was just a cesspool of Covid,” she said.
“And then a whole lot of new patients come in. It was an absolute
s**tshow to be honest.
“At that point, I don’t know how to describe the horrendousness of what we were going through.”
In a statement released on Tuesday through Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Ms McGee said: “After the toughest year of my nursing career, I’m taking a step back from the NHS but hope to return in the future.
“I’m excited to start a nursing contract in the Caribbean, before a holiday back home in New Zealand later in the year. I’m so proud to have worked at St Thomas’ Hospital and to have been part of such a fantastic team.”
A No 10 spokesperson said: “Our NHS staff have gone above and beyond over the past year and this Government will do everything in our power to support them.
“We are extremely grateful for the care NHS staff have provided throughout the pandemic in particular.
“That is why they have been exempted from the public sector wide pay freeze implemented as a result of the difficult economic situation created by the pandemic.
“At the same time we have invested £30 million to support staff mental health and are expanding the number of places available for domestic students at medical schools in England to continue expanding our workforce.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Ms McGee’s decision was a “devastating indictment of Boris Johnson’s approach to the people who put their lives on the line for him and our whole country”.
Pat Cullen, acting general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “There are already tens of thousands of nursing vacancies and we continue to warn of an exodus from the profession if the Government does not demonstrate its respect by giving nurses a fair pay rise for the skilled work they do.”
Unison head of health Sara Gorton said: “Many more experienced NHS staff could quit unless the Prime Minister sees sense over pay.
“The Scottish government has found the cash to give its health workers a decent rise.
“It’s high time NHS workers across the rest of the UK received the increase they deserve too.”