This doctor warned PM NHS staff needed better safety gear. Now he’s dead
CORONAVIRUS has killed a doctor weeks after he pleaded with Boris Johnson for NHS workers to be given better personal protective equipment (PPE).
Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, 53, lost his 15-day battle against Covid-19 in hospital yesterday.
On March 18, the consultant urologist wrote to Mr Johnson asking him to ‘urgently’ ensure PPE was available for ‘each and every NHS worker in the UK’.
The father of two, known to friends and family as Faisal, urged the Prime Minister: ‘Remember, we may be doctors/nurses... but we are also human beings.
‘People appreciate us and salute us for our rewarding job which is very inspirational, but i would like to say, we have to protect ourselves and our families/kids in this global crisis by using appropriate PPE.’ Mr Chowdhury, who worked at Homerton Hospital in east London, caught the virus a week later. He died at 1am yesterday at Queen’s Hospital in Romford.
Last night family friend Golam Rahat Khan said Dr Chowdhury, who recently celebrated his 25th wedding anniversary, had been worried about coronavirus ‘long before’ it reached the UK. ‘He was telling me and other friends that coronavirus was very dangerous,’ he said.
Dr Khan, 45, said none of Mr Chowdhury’s relatives, including his two children aged 11 and 18, was allowed to be with him when he died.
Medics on the NHS frontline have repeatedly begged the Government to provide adequate protective equipment, and many have complained at being asked to treat infectious patients without it.
At least 15 doctors and nurses working with Covid-19 patients have now succumbed to the disease themselves.
Yesterday the family of a dedicated GP who ‘felt it was his duty to help’ said he had died aged 76 after testing positive.
Dr Fayaz Ayache, 76, of Raydon, Suffolk, was taken by ambulance to ipswich Hospital on April 2 and died six days later. His eldest daughter Layla Ayache, 35, said her father retired two years ago but was soon back working ‘a couple of days a week’ as a GP with North Clacton Medical Group as he wanted to help people.
‘My dad was very, very commonly phoned and people would say “my daughter’s ill” or “my husband’s ill” and he would often pop round and check people were OK,’ she said. ‘He was a rural village GP at heart. He felt it was his duty to help.’
Elsewhere, a hospital doctor in Wiltshire has also died. Dr Edmond Adedeji, 62, was ‘respected and well-liked’ but after testing positive for coronavirus he passed away on Wednesday at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, where he worked.
His family said: ‘He died doing a job he loved, serving others before himself. We would like to thank the staff and his colleagues for looking after him during his final days. He leaves behind a wife, three children and three grandchildren.’
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‘He was telling us it was very dangerous’