Category Archives: Doctors

Coronavirus: 86% of doctors in England expect second wave in next six months

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BMA survey also found 90% thought test-and-trace failures were a risk factor

Almost 86% of doctors in England say they expect a second peak of coronavirus in the next six months, according to a new survey, as concern continues to grow over a recent rise in cases.

On Friday, new results from a population-based study suggested the R number for England is now at 1.7, with infections doubling every 7.7 days. While the prevalence of the disease remains lower than it was in the spring, an R value above 1 means cases could grow exponentially.

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More than 1,000 UK doctors want to quit NHS over handling of pandemic

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New survey finds two-thirds of respondents plan to leave within three years, citing Covid-19 burnout and frustrations over pay

Over 1,000 doctors plan to quit the NHS because they are disillusioned with the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and frustrated about their pay, a new survey has found.

The doctors either intend to move abroad, take a career break, switch to private hospitals or resign to work as locums instead, amid growing concern about mental health and stress levels in the profession.

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This pandemic exposes the source of true fear – our utter powerlessness | Melanie Cheng

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We’ve all experienced tragedy but usually there is comfort in the wider world carrying on. With Covid, the jig is up

  • This is part of a series of essays by Australian writers responding to the challenges of 2020

As a teenager, I loved feeling scared. Horror films were my go-to. The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Omen, even the slightly sillier ones like Friday the 13th. In my youth I mistook that manufactured titillation for real fear, but now I know better. Now I know true fear is not exhilarating. True fear cannot be easily soothed by a quick cuddle from Mum. True fear is intense, exhausting, merciless. True fear is an invisible pathogen that threatens to strip you of everything you love.

“Would you prefer to get your results on a less ominous day?” I joked as I booked patients in for their appointments on Friday the 13th of March, Some laughed and others hesitated but most seemed to eventually suppress any niggling superstition.

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‘We could see this tsunami of people coming’: inside the secret world of intensive care

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Even within a hospital, the ICU can feel like another world. But critical care goes far beyond simply keeping people alive – it’s also about what happens next

In early March, Mike Brunner, an intensive care doctor at Northwick Park hospital in north London, saw his first few Covid-19 patients. They were arriving with mild coughs, but just hours later were relying on oxygen tanks to breathe, their lungs on the brink of collapse. Within days, three patients became seven, then 20, and from then on, said Brunner, “we were in it”.

For a while, Brunner felt as if he and his colleagues were the only ones who saw the huge change coming. “We could see this tsunami of people coming at us, and yet nobody else did,” said Brunner. Driving through London on his way to work, past people crowded together in shops and pubs and cafes, he felt as if no one understood that very soon life was not going to be the same. “It was an incredibly lonely feeling,” he said.

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Pakistan Covid-19 doctors witness black market deals in blood plasma

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Patients are looking for cure as healthcare system is on brink of collapse, say doctors

As coronavirus chaos has enveloped Pakistan, with hospitals overflowing, doctors dying and infections escalating at an unmanageable rate, a dangerous black market in blood plasma has emerged.

The blood plasma of recovered coronavirus patients is now being sold for upwards of £3,000 to those who are desperately looking for a cure, at a time when doctors say Pakistan’s healthcare system is on the brink of collapse.

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Health officials make last-minute plea to stop lockdown easing in England

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Royal College of Nursing also fears lifting of more restrictions on ‘happy Monday’ is too early

Senior public health officials have made a last-minute plea for ministers to scrap Monday’s easing of the coronavirus lockdown in England, warning the country is unprepared to deal with any surge in infection and that public resolve to take steps to limit transmisson has been eroded.

The Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) said new rules, including allowing groups of up to six people to meet outdoors and in private gardens, were “not supported by the science” and that pictures of crowded beaches and beauty spots over the weekend showed “the public is not keeping to social distancing as it was”.

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New York ER doctor who treated coronavirus patients dies by suicide

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Dr Lorna Breen worked at New York-Presbyterian Allen hospital and was ‘truly in the trenches’, her father said

A top emergency room doctor in New York who was working on the frontline trying to save coronavirus victims at the height of the pandemic and also suffered the disease herself has died.

Related: A whip-smart neurologist, a social worker who sang Broadway: US health workers who died from Covid-19

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Hospital leaders hit out at government as PPE shortage row escalates

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Health managers in England voice ‘intense frustration’ in unprecedented intervention

Hospital leaders have directly attacked the government for the first time during the coronavirus crisis over the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) after a desperately needed consignment of surgical gowns that had been announced by ministers failed to arrive.

In an unprecedented intervention, which hospital leaders privately say is the result of “intense frustration and exasperation”, the organisations representing NHS trusts in England urged ministers to “just focus on what we can be certain of” after weeks of “bitter experience” with failed deliveries.

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Covid-19 appeal to benefit NHS staff through array of charities

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Fundraisers for NHS Charities Together aim for £100m goal

The fundraising effort of Tom Moore, the 99-year-old who inspired many with his sponsored garden walk, drawing in £15m on behalf of the NHS, has focused attention on the health service charities which stand to benefit.

Captain Moore’s 100 laps of his garden began on 8 April with a target of £1,000 which snowballed rapidly as his efforts received national TV and social media exposure. The £15m he has raised dwarfs the £10m donated to the fund by the Duke of Westminster, and the £5m given by the Rausing family, and puts the Covid-19 Appeal, launched Monday,well on the way to its £100m target.

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‘I feel fear and guilt’: an NHS junior doctor on the effect of getting Covid-19

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Rosie Hughes has tested positive for the coronavirus that has killed so many of her patients

I am a junior doctor. In the past few weeks I have seen dozens of people die from Covid-19. I am 25 years old. I’ve been working in the NHS for just over eight months at a major metropolitan hospital. When my colleagues and I decided to apply for medical school six years ago, we knew that we were signing up for a challenge. We were under no illusion that it would be an easy ride. But I don’t think any of us imagined that we would be on the frontline of a pandemic less than a year into our careers.

I have cared for patients from admission until death and I have held their hands when they have been too breathless to speak. I have fought hard for a patient to be considered for ventilation despite knowing that they didn’t meet the criteria. I stayed with them after my shift had ended, gowned and gloved, and watched them take their last breaths, knowing that a few months ago they might have stood a chance. I ring families to tell them that their loved one who came into hospital for something totally unrelated now has coronavirus and will not survive.

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UK missed three chances to join EU scheme to bulk-buy PPE

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Exclusive: Britain did not take part in €1.5bn order for kit to protect against Covid-19 despite shortages in NHS

Britain missed three opportunities to be part of an EU scheme to bulk-buy masks, gowns and gloves and has been absent from key talks about future purchases, the Guardian can reveal, as pressure grows on ministers to protect NHS medics and care workers on the coronavirus frontline.

European doctors and nurses are preparing to receive the first of €1.5bn (£1.3bn) worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) within days or a maximum of two weeks through a joint procurement scheme involving 25 countries and eight companies, according to internal EU documents.

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Queensland hospital workers denied promised payrise because of Covid-19 preparations

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Exclusive: in principle agreement was shelved after Annastacia Palaszczuk announced public sector payrises would be put ‘on hold’

• Palaszczuk’s Campbell Newman moment: freezing public sector wages in a time of coronavirus

Frontline health workers in Queensland have been denied a promised pay increase because they agreed to prioritise coronavirus preparations ahead of finalising an industrial agreement, their union says.

Last week, the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, blindsided the union movement and announced during a television interview that agreed public sector pay increases were “on hold” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

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Coronavirus: doctors and nurses in Belfast post message urging public to stay at home – video

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Healthcare workers on the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak in Northern Ireland have made an appeal to the public. In a video, doctors and nurses from the Belfast trust respiratory team urge people to stay at home in order to save lives

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‘My Covid-19 vlog’: junior doctor shares insight amid coronavirus outbreak – video

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NHS junior doctor Ed Hope has updated his YouTube channel by vlogging about his experience on the front line of the coronavirus emergency as Covid-19 cases grow in the UK, covering panic buying to specialist mask fitting.

Dr Hope's Sick Notes is a YouTube channel that usually has a 'light-hearted look at hospitals', however the doctor has got serious by looking at the NHS approach from the inside

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‘We’re clearing the decks’: a GP on watching the coronavirus pandemic unfold

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Despite the growing death toll and the unprecedented speed at which events are moving, the past few weeks feel like just a prelude of what is to come. By Gavin Francis

On 13 January, a bulletin from Health Protection Scotland was sent to all GP practices in the country describing a “novel Wuhan coronavirus”. I work in a small clinic in central Edinburgh with four doctors, two nurses and six admin staff. It was the first time I’d heard of the virus. “Current reports describe no evidence of significant human to human transmission, including no infections of healthcare workers,” it said reassuringly.

I cast my mind back to the Sars coronavirus of almost two decades ago, and briefly wondered how quickly the spread of this coronavirus would be stopped, as Sars was. A seafood market had been closed and sanitised. The bulletin said that although Wuhan was a city of 19 million people, there were only three flights per week from there to the UK, and the likely impact was “very low”. I shrugged, and carried on with my work.

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I saw colleagues die of Ebola. Health workers must not become coronavirus martyrs

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We will be the group most affected by this outbreak. Governments must bury austerity and ensure care is adequately staffed and well-resourced

Imagine working in an underfunded, understaffed hospital facing a devastating disease outbreak. Imagine being forced to make impossible choices about who to treat and who to let die. Imagine coming home to your family, knowing you might be putting them at risk.

These are the awful situations we health workers faced in dealing with the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Libera. For me the greatest tragedy is hearing similar stories emerge from colleagues around the world who are up against the coronavirus. It terrifies me to see that developed countries health systems are at breaking point – I hate to imagine what this virus might do to my region next.

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Inside an ICU: how long can we stay calm in the face of the coronavirus crisis?

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Now, more than ever, the NHS must prioritise care - not just for frail, elderly and vulnerable people but for staff too

There’s a strange mood in the intensive care unit (ICU) where I work at the moment. It’s one of controlled planning, paperwork and people pulling together in ways that on a normal day perhaps wouldn’t happen.

ICUs are as prepared as they can be. Locally business as usual has made way for preparations for caring for high numbers of patients. We are finding every ventilator we may have and identifying every suitably qualified member of staff. We will work together to fill gaps as best we can.

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‘This is a mess. Put on your mask’: diary from the frontline of the coronavirus health crisis

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This week we will hear from people working on the frontline of the health system as it manages the outbreak of Covid-19 around Australia. Today, we hear from a GP working in a private practice in Sydney’s southern suburbs

Bleary eyed as usual on an 8am Saturday morning start, I stumble into work, sit down at my desk and sip on the coffee my wonderful colleague has left for me. I glance at the screen and notice the familiar list of 30 patients booked in six hours. Sigh.

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Doctors call for tighter control of traditional Chinese medicine

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Exclusive: European experts fear WHO recognition will encourage use of unproven therapies

Europe’s leading doctors are to call for tighter regulation of traditional Chinese medicine, anxious that recent recognition by the World Health Organization will encourage the use of unproven therapies that can sometimes be harmful.

The Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM) and the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council will issue a joint statement on Thursday urging the WHO to clarify how traditional Chinese medicine and other complementary therapies should be used.

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What’s wrong with Angela Merkel? As a doctor, I will sit out the pop quiz | Ranjana Srivastava

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When someone is confronted by illness, we can’t resist being intrusive and speculative

This month my dear friend died from cancer, leaving behind a young family. A continent apart, we talked about her illness and what it meant. She told me that she wasn’t afraid of dying and I believed her because she knew the rich legacy she had created. But in the aftermath of her death a post her daughter released tore me asunder. In it, my friend recalls the reaction of strangers to her illness.

“How could you contract this disgusting illness?” one wailed. “You could easily have another five years,” shrugged another. (She just made it past one.) An acquaintance was angry at not having been told sooner. Another was perplexed by her equanimity, leading to an ambush at the elevator: “You know this is terminal, right?” Someone wanted to know the exact site of cancer. Another recalled the relative of a relative who died of exactly that kind of cancer not so long ago.

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