Covid inquiry: Hospitals ran out of body bags and were close to collapse in pandemic, tearful medic says

Politicians selected to not equip the UK with sufficient intensive care models earlier than the pandemic the chief medical officer has stated, as a senior NHS physician described scenes “from hell” on hospital wards.

Professor Kevin Fong – former nationwide scientific adviser in emergency preparedness, resilience and response at NHS England – instructed the Covid-19 inquiry he was on the scene of the Soho bombing in 1999 and labored in A&E through the July 7 London bombings “however nothing that I noticed… was as dangerous as Covid was each single day” for the hospitals most badly hit through the pandemic.”

Describing the hospitals he visited through the pandemic the medic stated workers had been so overwhelmed hospitals ran out of physique luggage and had sick sufferers “raining from the sky”.

The present module of the Covid-19 inquiry will concentrate on the NHS’s function and dealing with through the pandemic.

Additionally on Thursday, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, medical chief medical officer for England, instructed the inquiry: “The UK has a really low ICU (intensive care unit) capability in comparison with most of our peer nations in high-income international locations.

“Now that’s a alternative, that’s a political alternative. It’s a system configuration alternative however it’s a alternative. Subsequently you’ve got much less reserve when a serious emergency occurs, even when it’s wanting one thing of the dimensions of Covid.”

He stated that whereas beds and house will be purchased, techniques couldn’t be “scaled up” with out educated employees.

“There isn’t a method you possibly can practice somebody in six weeks to have the expertise of an skilled ICU nurse or an skilled ICU physician. It’s merely not doable,” he stated.

Requested about lengthy Covid, Prof Whitty stated it was “inevitable” that some folks would undergo long-term results.

England’s chief medical officer stated it was “a lot much less predictable” that individuals who had delicate or average illness would undergo long-term results.

Prof Whitty stated the messaging across the totally different masks healthcare employees ought to use through the pandemic was “fairly confused” in the beginning of the pandemic.

He added: “I believe the explanation that it was confused was it was not solely clear who was finally accountable for making choices on this fast-moving scenario. I believe that fairly lots of people thought they had been partially accountable, and that’s all the time an especially tough and harmful scenario to search out your self in.”

When requested about messaging to the general public over the long-term results, Prof Whitty stated: “I frightened in the beginning, I nonetheless fear, really, on reflection, about: did we get the extent of concern proper?

“Have been we both over-pitching it so that folks had been extremely afraid of one thing the place, in truth, their actuarial threat was low or can be not pitching it sufficient, and subsequently folks didn’t realise the danger they had been strolling into? I believe that steadiness is actually laborious.”

Placing folks in physique luggage

Prof Fong stated stated the “scale of demise was actually, actually astounding”.

“I labored on a shift the place we had six deaths in a single shift,” he stated. “One other hospital instructed us that that they had 10 deaths on a shift, two of whom had been their very own workers.

“We had nurses speaking about sufferers raining from the sky, the place one of many nurses instructed me they simply bought bored with placing folks in physique luggage.”

“(One hospital) stated that typically they had been so overwhelmed that they had been placing sufferers in physique luggage, lifting them from the mattress, placing them on the ground, and placing one other affected person in that mattress immediately as a result of there wasn’t time.

“We went to a different hospital the place issues bought so dangerous, they had been so wanting useful resource, that they ran out of physique luggage, and so they had been as a substitute issued with 9ft clear plastic sacks and cable ties.”

He stated the nurses speak about being traumatised by the expertise describing “recurring nightmares about feeling like they had been simply throwing our bodies away.”

In a single hospital, nurses took to carrying grownup nappies as a result of they had been so stretched they might not take bathroom breaks. Others went to Screw Repair to purchase visors for their very own protecting gear, the inquiry heard.

“I’ll always remember it,” he stated. “It was a scene from hell.

“There have been so few workers that among the nurses had chosen to both use the affected person commodes within the facet rooms, and among the nurses had chosen to put on grownup diapers as a result of there was actually nobody to offer them a rest room break and take over their nursing duties.”

He recalled a health care provider in one other unit who instructed him, “‘It’s been like a terrorist assault every single day because it began, and we don’t know when the assaults are going to cease’.”

Prof Fong stated the expertise for NHS workers on the entrance line in intensive care was “indescribable” and there have been models the place 70 per cent of sufferers died.

Prof Fong instructed how one affected person died in an ambulance as a result of they might not get into the hospital, whereas different sufferers couldn’t be intubated as there was no room or workers and ICU was full.

“It’s genuinely the closest I’ve ever seen a hospital to a state of collapse in my complete profession,” he stated.

The anaesthetist at College School London Hospitals NHS Basis Belief, who was seconded to NHS England in March 2020, instructed the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry {that a} colleague at a district basic hospital contacted him within the early days of the disaster to inform him they had been “overflowing with sufferers”.

He was instructed that the hospital was “working out of workers and working out of primary consumable gadgets” together with medicine and gear.

A number of folks within the public seating space on the inquiry wiped away tears throughout Prof Fong’s testimony.