An anguished cry from the NHS front line: coronavirus is about to explode among medical staff
Like many other Telegraph journalists, I have received a number of emails from well-informed doctors and medical staff working at the front of the NHS. They are in despair.
They are alarmed by the failure of the Government to take more drastic action to fight Covid-19. They are stunned that this country seems to have opted for capitulation at a time when best practice leaders in East Asia - and I don’t mean China - have managed to contain the virus through use of technology, and to do so without massive economic and social disruption.
These medics are not reflexive ideological enemies of the Tories or blow-hard Twitterati. They are Telegraph readers who fear that a terrible mistake is being made and that the country is heading for a catastrophe - using that loaded term correctly - unless policy is changed immediately.
They are furious that NHS staff are not being tested to see if they have contracted the disease (or, later, to see if they have antibodies to the virus and are therefore no longer at risk), and why they are being made to work in the dark. They want to know why this is not being done urgently and comprehensively, as a matter of general policy. Other countries have shown that such testing is de rigueur...
..."One of the 10 is in his 50s, and has somewhat restricted lung capacity because of an orthopaedic problem – he spent this weekend making a will and putting his affairs in order. He had realised that with the current NHS leadership, there was basically nothing he could do to avoid catching it in coming days. Crunching the statistics, he realised that several consultants in the hospital will probably die.
“We have received no advice at all to take any measures to reduce spread in the hospital. Where the South Koreans were attending hospital in full hazmat suits, I will be arriving in my suit and tie tomorrow with nothing to prevent me catching it, and working in an operating theatre that a Covid patient was in on Friday, nobody aware that he had it, and the staff members I will be working with, will all have been in contact with that patient.
“So, the NHS is just about to explode in terms of absences, simultaneously with the patient explosion. All entirely predictable”...
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