‘C-19 not hitting everyone fairly’
City council leader says poorer areas being hit twice as hard Celebrities and royalty mark opening of Nightingale hospital
As Nightingale Hospital North East is officially opened, the leader of Sunderland City Council has addressed the need of the facility in case their is a second peak of the ‘killer virus’.
Centre for Cities says the latest figures from Public Health England show the city has more than 370 cases per 100,000 people – giving it the highest infection in England.
The majority of those included in the Public Health England figures have become so unwell with the virus that they have needed medical treatment and were therefore tested for the illness in hospital.
At the beginning of this week, there has been 279 coronavirus-related deaths at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS trust.
In total, 1,091 patients who had tested positive for coronavirus have died across the North East’s hospital trusts.
Graeme Miller, the leader of Sunderland City Council, said: "COVID-19 is not hitting everybodyfairly.TheONSstatistics the health statistics are now beginning to show that poorer areas are being hit at least twice as hard as more affluent areas.
"Itisfrustratingbutunderstandablewhenyoulookatthe logic and the numbers of it all that you're twice as likely to catch Covid and/or die from it in the North East than Richmond.
“Part of that is the background to the North East, and to Sunderland specifically, we have an ageing population with many secondary health issuestiedtothefactthatSunderlandwasaheavyindustrial zone.
“When you then look at ten years of austerity and the unintended consequence of it – because it wasn’t thought through properly in my opinion – and you’ve had 16,000 health beds come out of the NHS, tens of thousands of nurses and doctors and a £9billion black hole in adult social care. All of that has come home to roost and Sunderland, being a poor area, is one of the worst affected.”
NightingaleHospitalNorth East was officially opened yesterday and will start taking COVID-19 patients if and when the region’s hospitals have reached capacity.
Itishopedthehospitalwill never see a patient admitted with health bosses saying the facility, which has been convertedintoa460-bedhospital, is an ”insurance policy”.
But as the daily death toll drops throughout the UK there is a fear that easing lockdownmeasurestoosooncould cause a second spike of cases.
Mr Miller added: “I think we have to be very careful about releasing lockdown too early. I know that there is concern about the economy because we don’t have one at the moment.
“But if people go back to work too quickly and in too big a number – and if we don’t have enough contact tracing, we haven’t done enough testing–wecouldeasilyhaveabigger spike than what we’ve had becausewedon’tknowwhere the virus is out there.”
Speaking as the new 460bed facility was officially opened, Sharon Hodgson MP, Member of Parliament for Washington and Sunderland West said: “I had hoped that the Nightingale Hospital at IAMP would never need to be opened.
“But unfortunately, with high rates of Coronavirus infections in the North East the opening of the Nightingale is necessary and has to be ready if and when it is needed to relieve pressure off local hospitals and help save lives.”