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Is The NHS Really Up To Tackling The Coronavirus (Covid-19) After 10 Years Of Neglect?

Confusion over cause of death of elderly patient - no prior screening

Whilst the Prime Minister keeps saying we have a fantastic NHS.. etc in the face of the fact that NHS doctors are saying that there is a lack of preparedness and even respiratory equipment needed to treat urgent cases of the virus amongst mostly elderly people who may be infected, the true nature of our NHS preparedness has been highlighted today with the death of a second person, ‘thought’ to have the virus!

Clinicians and Hospital admin staff are checking the incident in Milton Keynes Hospital to ‘confirm’ the person concerned had the virus!

Sky News has reported that The man was understood to be in his late 80s, had underlying health conditions and died at Milton Keynes Hospital.

Doctors are awaiting official test results to confirm if it was a case of COVID-19 that killed the patient.

Meanwhile clinical staff that looked after the patient have had to go into isolation, along with other patients on the ward. "Public Health England (PHE) has confirmed that two members of our staff have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus," it said in a statement.

This begs the question as to why the UK is doing now preventative screening, and one would have though that automatic screening for the virus should take place on ALL patients brought into hospital BEFORE they are admitted.

Earlier this week, Tim Cook a doctor in an NHS intensive care unit made it clear that the NHS is indeed NOT prepared for the Covid-19 virus.

In a Guardian newspaper4 article he said:

ICU is a precious and scarce resource in terms of beds, staff and equipment. This is especially so in the UK. In 2012 the UK had about 4,100 critical care beds including ICU beds and “high dependency” beds which are a step down from full ICU care. 

Compared with other European countries the UK ranked 23rd of 31 in terms of ICU beds per head of population and 29th of 31 for all hospital beds. Germany has approximately four times as many ICU beds per capita as the UK.

His concern was evidenced by his explaining why intensive care beds are critical to caring for patients with the virus:

Severe Covid-19 leads mostly to lung failure but also causes kidney and cardiovascular (heart and blood vessel) failure. All these are rapidly fatal without intense and prompt treatments only available in ICU. In simple terms, treatments include a ventilator taking over the patient’s breathing while the patient is anaesthetised (placed in an induced coma), a dialysis machine cleaning the blood and drugs or machines supporting the heart and blood pressure. The reality of care is, of course, considerably more complex and highly intensive.

So let’s look at some statistics:

It is likely that more than 30% of the whole UK population will get Covid-19 – it may be as high as 60% in some estimates. Most will have no or mild illness but maybe one in seven will need hospital admission. Of patients in hospital up to one in five may need ICU care – that would be an unprecedented number of people admitted to ICU. As many as one in 50 of patients known to have Covid-19 may die from it.

It is quite clear that the last 10 years of neglect of the NHS in terms of funding appropriation, privatisation of clinical services and wholesale selling off bit by bit of NHS services and buildings which continues to date, has caused the current situation and putting patients lives at risk, but on a wholescale level when the UK is hit by the peak of the Covid – 19 virus.

Source: Sky / The Guardian /unionsafety

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