LONDON (AP) – When the UK surpassed more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths this week, it was much more than just a number for Justin Fleming.
While in a hospital bed with COVID-19, he knew how easily he could have become one of them had it not been for the medics and other staff working to save his life.
“I thought I might not see my partner again, my mom – be a dead friend, just be a stat,” said 47-year-old Fleming, who was rushed to King’s College Hospital in mid-January. His condition improved after two weeks of oxygen in an acute care unit.
The magnitude of the coronavirus outbreak in Britain may seem overwhelming, with tens of thousands of new infections and more than 1,000 deaths per day. But in hospital COVID-19 wards, the pandemic feels both epic and intimate, as staff fight the virus one patient at a time and the end is not in sight.
Fleming says he was amazed at the diversity of the ‘incredible’ staff – including recently qualified medics, a nurse who had just arrived from the Philippines, and staff from dental departments and brain injury teams – who eased his isolation and saved him from entering the selection. of death.
“Since you have to be isolated (with COVID-19), you feel like you just disappeared,” he said. “It’s almost like you can become a non-person within a week.”
Fleming is one of more than 37,000 coronavirus patients treated in UK hospitals, almost double the spring wave. Located in a diverse, densely populated area of South London, King’s College Hospital had nearly 800 COVID-19 patients earlier this winter. A new national lockdown has brought the number down to a still challenging 630.
Dr. Jenny Townsend, critical care consultant, works in a 16-bed intensive care unit that currently has 30 patients, with two beds squeezed into each bay designed for one. In normal times, one intensive care nurse takes care of one patient. The ratio is now as high as one in four.
“We all feel very stretched and everyone is doing their best to help each other in each of the required roles,” said Townsend.
“We are doing our best, and we are doing it in very difficult circumstances. We try to deliver as close to what we normally do, but due to the number of patients, we occasionally need to prioritize what we can and cannot do, ”she said.
This is especially difficult because coronavirus care is labor-intensive. It takes a village of people and skills to treat every critically ill patient.
One recent day in the ward, Townsend supervised a tracheostomy, in which a small tube was inserted into a patient’s trachea to help him breathe without a ventilator – a small step toward possible recovery. Down the hall, family liaison officer Berenice Page held a video call with family members from a patient’s bedside. More than half a dozen employees worked to put another patient ‘forward’ and gently place them on their stomach to help them breathe more easily.
Like other hospitals, this hospital had to adapt quickly when COVID-19 first hit in early 2020, to find space for more patients and re-deploy medical staff to work in unusual roles. The departments were converted, staff from other departments were recruited to the new COVID departments and the intensive care departments were expanded.
Then, after a hiatus from the summer when the cases plummeted, the hospital had to do it all over again when the virus returned in the fall. Many employees find the battle more difficult the second time around.
“In the first wave, people’s energy levels were better because we were dealing with the unknown and we learned along the way,” said Felicia Kwaku, the hospital’s deputy director of nursing. “In this second wave, it’s worse because the patients are much sicker, the numbers are higher, the wave feels longer.”
Coronavirus patient Fleming, who has seen the pandemic up close, says Britain’s overburdened doctors “now need credit – and help and support.”
“This is an important historic moment and they have protected the country,” he said.
While the number of patients admitted to London hospitals with COVID-19 is gradually declining, the pressure on physicians will only slowly diminish due to the time lag between infections, hospital admissions and – for the sick patients – transfers to the intensive care unit.
That means constant challenges for staff, such as the family liaison officer Page. Every day, she calls patients’ relatives to update them on their condition, then brings a tablet computer into the ward so that relatives, who are not allowed to visit, can see at least their unconscious loved ones.
“I really feel privileged to talk to them,” said Page, whose usual job is as CPR coordinator.
“ You get a glimpse of the patient’s life when you make the video calls, and you see (the family members) sitting at their home and some of them have young children. And yes, I feel their despair. But I also know what difference it makes, ”she said.
“We often talk to people whose family members will die. It’s a very difficult situation. … I think when they talk to us. I can say they find some, there is some peace for them, ”she added.
Kwaku said the pace of patient admission remains “relentless,” and implored the trapped weary British to continue to follow the rules of social aloofness.
She said hospital workers are taking heart from the rapid introduction of coronavirus vaccines in the UK. More than 7 million people have received the first of two doses.
Kwaku says the staff also get a boost from the patients who recover and go home, and take some comfort from those who offer them “ a good death, ” free from strife and fear.
“You take every shift as it comes, you take every day as it comes,” she said. ‘You can fall, and you get up. You may feel down, you recover. Maybe you should cry. … But we’re here to take care of patients and look after each other. “
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