Category Archives: Doctors

Doctors treating unvaccinated Covid patients are succumbing to compassion fatigue

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Exhausted healthcare workers admit they feel demoralized as the fourth surge spreads across the US

Last February, Dr Bryce Meck, 30, would lock herself in the bathroom to cry for five minutes when her patients, whom she had watched over for weeks in the medical intensive care unit, were dying from Covid-19. They begged her to tell people in their community to get vaccinated. Of the 20 patients with Covid-19 in her care, only three survived.

Each week, Meck’s frustration grew when she saw patients in a Columbia, Missouri, primary care clinic. They expressed vaccine hesitancy, shared misinformation or told her that their friends were pressuring them to remain unvaccinated. “If only the patients in the clinic could just meet the people who are suffering in the hospital,” said Meck, who continues to experience long-term effects of the virus herself.

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‘Maestro of humanity’: Italian surgeon Gino Strada dies at 73

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Tributes paid to doctor whose NGO set up world-class hospitals in war zones such as Iraq, Yemen and Sudan

Tributes have been paid to Gino Strada, the Italian surgeon and “maestro of humanity” known for setting up world-class hospitals for the victims of war, who has died aged 73.

The medic, who in 1994 co-founded the humanitarian organisation Emergency to provide free, quality healthcare for those injured in conflict, died on Friday in France, reports said.

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Covid patients reunited with the medics who saved them

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Four people who were so ill that they barely remember their time in the ICU meet the doctors and nurses who held their hands

In a light-filled studio in east London, a petite woman in scrubs receives a bouquet of flowers from a tall man, dressed smartly, only faintly out of breath.

The room is thick with emotion. They are strangers, but stare at each other with wonder in their eyes. And then Dr Susan Jain, an intensive care consultant at Homerton university hospital, breaks the silence with a laugh.

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‘I advise everyone to get it’: UK Covid patients tell of regrets over refusing jab

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Doctors say most patients now arriving in intensive care are unvaccinated, and deeply regret their decision

For some people, the moment the ambulance arrives is the time they start expressing regrets about not receiving a coronavirus vaccine. For others, it’s the death of a loved one.

Healthcare workers and Covid patients have spoken out about growing numbers who, once faced with the serious reality of catching the virus, realise that they made a huge mistake.

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Over 450 key workers with long Covid tell MPs of their struggles

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Nurses, teachers, GPs and police officers among those to give evidence to cross-party inquiry

More than 450 key workers with long Covid have told a cross-party parliamentary inquiry of their experiences of the condition, including struggles to return to work and lack of financial support, with one in 10 having lost their job.

Nurses, teachers, GPs, police officers and midwives were among those who shared their experience of long Covid, symptoms of which include debilitating fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pains, sleeping difficulties and brain fog.

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Long Covid has more than 200 symptoms, study finds

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Calls for national screening programme as symptoms revealed range from brain fog to tinnitus

The largest ever international study of people with long Covid has identified more than 200 symptoms and prompted researchers to call for a national screening programme.

The study found the myriad symptoms of long Covid – from brain fog and hallucinations to tremors and tinnitus – spanned 10 of the body’s organ systems, and a third of the symptoms continued to affect patients for at least six months.

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Spat at, abused, attacked: healthcare staff face rising violence during Covid

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Data shows increased danger for those on the frontline in the pandemic, with misinformation, scarce vaccines and fragile health systems blamed

Hundreds of healthcare workers treating Covid patients around the world have experienced verbal, physical, and sometimes life-threatening attacks during the pandemic, prompting calls for immediate action from human rights campaigners.

Covid-related attacks on healthcare workers are expected to rise as new variants cause havoc in countries such as India and rollouts of vaccination programmes belatedly get under way in some countries, according to the UN special rapporteur on the right to health.

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GPs stricken by long Covid ‘shocked and betrayed’ at being forced from jobs

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Unions demand fair compensation for dozens of doctors now unable to work because of debilitating symptoms

Family doctors are being forced out of their jobs after developing long Covid, prompting demands for the government to compensate NHS staff with the debilitating condition who cannot work.

GPs struggling with the condition have told the Observer they felt “shocked and betrayed” when their colleagues removed them from their posts because of prolonged sick leave.

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How UK doctor linked rare blood-clotting to AstraZeneca Covid jab

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Prof Marie Scully developed a diagnostic test at University College London hospital after seeing rare side-effect in patient

Marie Scully was alarmed and puzzled. “It didn’t make sense,” she said. The consultant haematologist at University College London hospital (UCLH) had seen patients with blood clots in the brain and low platelets before and, although it was unusual, she always knew why. But there was no reason for the condition of the young woman in her 30s she was treating in early March.

“Now when you have blood clots in the brain like that there’s always a cause, and it was difficult to pinpoint the cause,” said Prof Scully. “It didn’t fit our normal diagnostic boxes, let’s say. She was a young woman with cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, and she had a low platelet count.”

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As a sense of normality returns, we must not forget what this last year has been like for the NHS

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I’m an NHS consultant. We barely had the resources to keep people alive – let alone cope with longer effects of Covid

One year ago, lockdown had just come in. A creeping sense of dread was spreading across the hospital. We were focused on the first wave of admissions, the peak of which for us occurred in early April. We were desperately learning how to keep people from dying due to this new disease. The longer-term consequences were the last thing on our minds.

Now, a year on, there is a superficial sense of normality returning. Our respiratory support unit, for so long hidden behind closed doors with “STOP: CORONAVIRUS” signs and staffed by hooded figures in head-to-toe PPE, has turned back into the bright, airy ward it used to be. Nurses, doctors, porters are back in their usual clothes instead of uniform scrubs; conversation has replaced the incessant hiss of Cpap machines. Our ITU is shrinking back to its normal size. It is easy to forget how things were even a couple of months ago.

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Doctors suggest Covid-19 could cause diabetes

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More than 350 clinicians report suspicions of Covid-induced diabetes, both type 1 and type 2

A cohort of scientists from across the world believe that there is a growing body of evidence that Covid-19 can cause diabetes in some patients.

Prof Francesco Rubino, from King’s College London, is leading the call for a full investigation into a possible link between the two diseases. Having seen a rise in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes in people who have caught coronavirus, some doctors are even considering the possibility that the virus ‒ by disrupting sugar metabolism ‒ could be inducing an entirely new form of diabetes.

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Unions urge Sunak to reconsider 1% pay rise for NHS England staff

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BMA, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Midwives and Unison say pay recommendation ‘fails the test of honesty’

The government is under mounting pressure to reconsider its proposed 1% pay rise for NHS staff in England, with four trade unions writing a joint letter to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to express their “dismay” and calling for a fair pay deal.

The British Medical Association (BMA), the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing and Unison said the pay deal “fails the test of honesty and fails to provide staff who have been on the very frontline of the pandemic the fair pay deal they need”.

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‘Pure, liquid hope’: what the vaccine means to me as a GP

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For almost a year our small clinic has been struggling with the horrors of the coronavirus pandemic. So being able to give our staff and most vulnerable patients their first doses of the vaccine has been a real turning point

During the week I work in a small, inner-city GP practice in Edinburgh with 14 staff, caring for almost 4,000 patients. Before the pandemic, I used to see 25-30 people in face-to-face appointments every day. A year into the pandemic, the need out there is the same, but my GP colleagues and I manage more like five or six face-to-face (or mask-to-mask) consultations, a home visit or two, and the remainder on the phone or through video calls. It’s not the best way to practise medicine, but for the moment, it’s the best we have.

The first I heard of the vaccine rollout was back in October, when our practice manager received an email from the health board asking if we would have capacity to vaccinate the over-80s among our patients. We said yes, of course: in the past year we’ve had four patients die of Covid-19, three of them over 80.

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I’m an NHS consultant anaesthetist. I see the terror in my Covid patients’ eyes

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As a hospital consultant working in intensive care, the reality of coronavirus and patients’ fear is brought home to me every day

I’m not ready,” the patient implores me through her CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] hood. She’s breathing at more than triple her normal rate and I’ve been asked to intubate her as she’s deteriorating, despite three days in intensive care. She is 42 years old.

There’s terror in her eyes. A tear runs down her cheek. She’s looking at the patient opposite who is in an induced coma, intubated and ventilated, and isn’t doing well.

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‘The air reeks of invisible danger’: an extract from Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic

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In this extract from her new book Breathtaking, palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke reveals the pressure and pain of splitting her time between hospice patients and hospital Covid wards

In January 2020, novel coronaviruses are nowhere on my mind. Like everyone working in the NHS, I am steeled for a home-grown catastrophe. For no matter how many patients lie on trolleys in corridors, how many ambulances sit trapped on hospital forecourts, how many photos go viral of toddlers slumped on their parents’ coats, receiving oxygen on the floor of a beleaguered A&E, nothing ever truly changes. These days, the annual NHS “winter crisis” is both dreaded and reliable as clockwork.

The numbers are so large, and repeated so frequently, they have long been leached of their force: 17,000 hospital beds lost since 2010; only 2.5 beds per 1,000 people in the UK, compared with three times that number in Germany; unfilled vacancies for more than 10,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses.

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Doctors call for shorter gap between Pfizer Covid vaccine doses in UK

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British Medical Association warns current 12-week wait could reduce effectiveness of the jab

The gap between the first and second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine must be reduced to ensure the vaccine is effective, senior doctors have warned.

Currently patients wait about three months to get their second dose. Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said this was a “public health decision” to get the first jab to more people across the country.

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‘We’re bursting’: a day inside a Covid intensive care unit

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The Guardian spends a day with Covid patients and staff at Milton Keynes University hospital

In a private room by the locked entrance of the intensive care unit, Dilip Sharan is sitting up in bed, a plate of stew in front of him. He navigates his spoon around the breathing tube keeping him alive, every mouthful soundtracked by a discordant symphony of beeps and bongs from multiple monitors keeping tabs on his vital organs.

It is his fifth day in the last chance saloon of Covid care. He gasps for air, barely able to speak.

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How the Covid surge has left the NHS on the brink – podcast

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Boris Johnson has announced a new national lockdown amid fears the NHS could be overwhelmed within weeks with Covid patients. Denis Campbell and Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden describe a service already at breaking point

Fears that the NHS could be overwhelmed within weeks have prompted new national lockdowns across the UK. There are now more than 30,000 people in NHS hospitals with coronavirus as staff levels have been hit too by the disease.

The Guardian’s health policy editor, Denis Campbell, tells Anushka Asthana that the rapidly rising number of Covid patients is forcing hospitals to cancel non-urgent operations and ration care. Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, who works in intensive care units, says staff are feeling exhausted as their workloads continue to expand. She welcomes the new lockdown but fears the toll on the NHS and staff is becoming unbearable.

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NHS staff face burnout as Covid hospital admissions continue to rise

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Nurses plead with the public to follow official advice to help relieve pressure on frontline workers

England’s chief nurse has said that NHS and care staff are working incredibly hard to cope with record numbers of Covid-19 patients, amid concern that frontline staff are close to burnout.

Ruth May pleaded with the public to follow the coronavirus advice to help relieve the pressure on hospital staff, after two days of record hospital admissions.

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New Year honours 2020: citizens awarded for response to pandemic crisis

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Among those honoured are health and social care workers, Covid response volunteers, virus experts and fund-raising centenarians

Hundreds of key workers and community champions who battled the pandemic have been recognised in the New Year honours list for the UK which celebrates people’s extraordinary response to the Covid-19 crisis.

Lewis Hamilton, the Formula One driver, and the cinematographer Roger Deakins are among the celebrities knighted, while the architect David Chipperfield gets the Companion of Honour. The actor Toby Jones and Jed Mercurio, creator of the TV series Line of Duty, are given OBEs for services to drama. On being made a dame for services to drama the actor Sheila Hancock said she feared she was “slightly miscast”.

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