Front line staff at the NHS are not getting the protective equipment they need to treat coronavirus patients, making them feel “cannon fodder,” said a local medical organization.
Health care workers in hospitals expressed frustration and fear at the lack of personal protective equipment, saying they should replace the right equipment with less effective items – or even improvise with non-medical equipment.
Responding to staff concerns, Dr. Rinesh Parmar, president of the Association of Physicians, told The BBC’s Andrew Marr Show1: “We have had doctors who tell us that they feel like lambs at the slaughterhouse, that they feel like cannon fodder. GPs tell us that they feel absolutely abandoned.
“We all argue with Boris Johnson that [the government] really looking to organize the vital personal protective equipment we all need on the front lines of the NHS. What our doctors tell us is that even if equipment arrives, some are inadequate, some do not meet the directives of the World Health Organization. It really does not give the front-line health workers the confidence they need. “
Nurses from the Royal Free Hospital in north London have placed bags of clinical waste around their legs, said the Guardian, while at North Middlesex Hospital they have tied plastic aprons around their head.
One nurse, who did not wish to be named, said, “There are very common nurses making their own PPE. I know friends with whom I have trained. We have to protect ourselves, some of us have children and babies. We try to help people but have to protect families. I don’t know why we don’t get PPE. “
The absence of PPE increases the chances that NHS staff will fall ill – and potentially spread Covid-19 – at an unprecedented time of demand, as attempts are made to strengthen the workforce.
But there is also concern that existing staff members who are not feeling well are not receiving enough support or are not tested.
A nurse from a London trust said one of her colleagues asked her for help, having failed to get it elsewhere. “One of my colleagues asked me for help to check if he could come to A&E,” she said. “The colleague’s temperature reaches 40.3 ° C [104.6F] – before, it had never dropped below 38.6 [101.4F]. They take paracetamol every four hours.
“We wanted them to go to A&E, but the 111’s advice is not to go there. We said they should come and get tested. This person is on the staff – why can’t they get it? I worry about them because they have body pain and no one seems to care.
“Our A&E colleagues said,” Come and we will test you. “Sometimes we have to save our colleagues.”
Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director of Quality and Health Care Strategy for the NHS, stressed that there was an adequate supply of PPE but admitted that distribution had been an issue.
He told BBC Breakfast on Sunday: “I know there is enough supply, distribution has been difficult, because we are adding new places, we are adding in care homes, we are adding in community pharmacies . We have not had regular PPE transmission to these locations before, which poses individual problems in the four UK countries. “
He said staff need to be trained on how to adapt to high-end masks, adding, “I am confident that the start of this supply chain is robust and that distribution will improve in the coming years. days.”
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