Families of our heroes live in fear
NHS staff say their families “worry what they are bringing through the door” when they return from Covid-hit hospitals.
Coronavirus patients in hospital in England stood at a record 28,246 at 8am yesterday, up 24% on a week ago.
There are 50% more patients in hospitals than during the first wave and 10,000 more since Christmas Day.
London and the South East have been overrun by the mutant variant and the rest of the country is thought to be a few weeks behind.
NHS Providers revealed hospital bosses are asking if they can put patients in beds in care homes.
A leaked document has shown London’s hospitals are less than two weeks from being overwhelmed.
Tori Cooper, 44, head emergency nurse at St George’s Hospital, in South West London, said: “My family are obviously worried about me coming in to work but they know this is what
I do, what I love, my reason for getting up in the morning. But they have that concern every day that I might get sick. And you worry what you’re bringing through the door.”
She said it is “by far the hardest” time of her 20-year career.
“The things we’ve e seen have been more difficult ult than anything I’ve seen. When you go home you almost ost don’t want to allow yourself elf time to crumble because you ou think if you start, you won’t stop.
“Every person could be a family member, that’s t’s what’s so WORRY Head nurse Tori Cooper
Shocking toll on NHS staff hard.” NHS England figures showed a meaning they do not have enough total of 3,697 hospital admissions were beds to take in ambulance patients. reported for January 5, passing the The NHS England presentation previous record of 3,587 on January 4. showed even if the number of Covid During g the first wave, admissions patients grew at the lowest rate, and peaked at 3,099, on Ap April 1, 2020. measures to increase capacity were Nationally, alm almost 50,000 NHS successful – including opening the staff are off sick with Covid-19 capital’s Nightingale hospital – the and safe me medic-to-patient NHS in London would be short of ratios are having to be nearly 2,000 general and acute and relaxed, Lo London medical intensive care beds by January 19. director Vin Diwakar told Prof Rupert Pearse, intensive care other chiefs of the capital’s consultant at a London hospital, said: trusts, the Health H Service “We’re down to one nurse to three and Journal reported. reporte filling those gaps with untrained staff. The Mirror understands “We’re faced with diluting that to most hospitals are on “divert”, one in four.” Dr Mohamed Ahmed, 40,
My family worry about me at work and I worry about what I’m bringing through the door
TORI COOPER HEAD EMERGENCY NURSE, ST GEORGE’S HOSPITAL
I’ve spent a torrid few days desperately trying to keep people alive and failing
ICU consultant at St George’s, said: “When a nurse has to look after three or four patients, their standards are lowered. They come away feeling demotivated and demoralised.”
ICU matron Lindsey Izard, 47, said pressures were immense. “It’s not just about Covid,” she said.
“If you go up a ladder this weekend and fall off it, there’s a chance you won’t get an ICU bed.”
She added: “What we’ll see at the end of this is exhausted nurses, with a large number who may not want to stay in the profession.”
Omome Etomi, 28, a medical registrar on the Acute Dependency
Unit, said she was “shattered”. She added: “Psychologically more than anything, it has been months and months of this.”
St George’s has had to expand the number of intensive care beds for the critically ill from 60 to 120.
The Intensive Care Society said problems were spreading over the UK. Dr Richard Cree, of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “I’ve spent a torrid few days desperately trying to keep people alive and failing.”
The Government is being pressed to pay care homes to take on thousands of patients from hospitals, the Health Service Journal reported. NHS
Providers chief
Chris Hopson said: “This is escalating really quickly. We are reaching the point in some places where hospital beds are full, community beds are full and community at home services are full.”
Across England, the virus accounts for almost half of staff absences – 46,378 out of a total of 95,452.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told MPs on the Health Select Committee: “Hospitalisation levels I’d expect to fall but, ironically, not as quickly as deaths in the first instance. Slightly younger patients spend longer in hospital, often because they survive when somebody very old and frail might not survive for as long.”
Staff at St George’s confirmed that they are treating patients in their 20s and 30s, many of them seriously ill.
In London there were 7,231 Covidpatients in hospitals yesterday, up 27% in a week. In Wales it was 2,800, with 1,467 in Scotland.
NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said: “We are seeing up over 800 patients a day admitted to London hospitals with coronavirus.
“That is the equivalent of a new St Thomas’ Hospital full of Covid patients, fully staffed, every day.”
DR RICHARD CREE SOUTH TEES HOSPITAL NHS FOUNDATION TRUST