Shortage of proper kit ‘is going to kill medics’

DOCTORS and their families will die from coronavirus unless the Government urgently addresses shortages of protective clothing, a trade union has warned.

The British Medical Association said members were being asked to risk their lives and those of their loved ones wearing just ‘flimsy paper masks’.

The union – which represents two thirds of the UK’s doctors – said despite repeated promises by ministers that supplies were being delivered, they weren’t arriving on the frontline.

Yesterday Boris Johnson came under pressure over the issue of Personal Protective Equipment during the last Prime Minister’s Questions before Easter.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn noted how one major NHS supplier had asked DIY shops to donate masks and visors to hospitals via Twitter earlier this week.

The Prime Minister replied: ‘I am assured that not only are the stocks now there but the Army is now distributing the supplies to all the NHS staff and all the hospitals that need it, and in the past 24 hours has distributed 7.5million pieces of equipment.’

When asked by Labour MP Peter Kyle how long it would take for the equipment to be delivered to care home staff, Mr Johnson responded ‘by the end of the week.’

But the BMA claimed that one doctor was wearing his nine-year-old daughter’s science glasses for protection.

Another member said there was no protective equipment at all and it would just be ‘pot luck’ who survived.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, of the BMA, said: ‘There are limits to the risks that doctors should expose themselves to and to go beyond those is not fair on themselves, their families or their patients.’