Category Archives: Hospitals

Vaccines and oxygen run out as third wave of Covid hits Uganda

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Vaccine thefts reported and hospitals unable to admit patients as cases leap 2,800% in a month

Uganda has all but run out of Covid-19 vaccines and oxygen as the country grapples with another wave of the pandemic.

Both private and public medical facilities in the capital, Kampala and in towns across the country – including regional hubs in Entebbe, Jinja, Soroti, Gulu and Masaka – have reported running out or having acute shortages of AstraZeneca vaccines and oxygen. Hospitals report they are no longer able to admit patients to intensive care.

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Ministers urged to reveal details of £2bn Covid deals with private health firms

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Contracts to increase capacity handed to 17 companies, some of whom had donated to Conservatives

The government has been urged to publish details of up to £2bn in Covid-19 contracts awarded to private healthcare companies, including some that have helped fund the Conservative party.

Contracts to provide extra capacity during the pandemic have been handed to 17 firms since March 2020.

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NHS trust pleads guilty after ‘wholly avoidable’ death of week-old baby

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East Kent hospitals trust admits failing to provide safe care for Harry Richford and his mother

An NHS trust has pleaded guilty to failing to provide safe care and treatment after the death of a baby boy.

Representatives for East Kent hospitals university NHS foundation trust were in court on Monday after the death of Harry Richford seven days after his emergency delivery.

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Medics’ anger as Delhi orders most beds in private hospitals be reserved for Covid cases

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Doctors say ‘absurd’ move, made as second wave surges, is unfair on non-Covid patients

Doctors have expressed fears for patients after the government ordered that the majority of the beds in 14 of Delhi’s biggest private hospitals be reserved exclusively for Covid patients, as the Indian capital’s healthcare system struggles to cope with a virulent second wave.

The announcement by the government came as the situation in Delhi grew increasingly dire, with over 17,000 new cases reported on Wednesday, breaking all records since the pandemic began, and 104 deaths. The capital has overtaken Mumbai, previously Covid ground zero in India, in terms of the number of new cases reported every day.

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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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Lesotho sacks hundreds of striking nurses as doctors warn of dire shortages

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The African state was already struggling to cope with TB, HIV and Covid before latest response to demands for equal pay

Lesotho has sacked hundreds of its nurses over the past few days in a row over pay. The small southern African country’s main hospital in the capital, Maseru, fired 345 nurses and nursing assistants, who have been on strike for the past month, with immediate effect.

The nurses went on strike to press the government-owned Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH) to give them the same salaries as their counterparts in other government and private institutions. Opened in 2011, QMMH is state-owned but run by the Tšepong Consortium, comprising five companies, namely Netcare Healthcare Group and Afri’nnai of South Africa, and Excel Health, Women Investment, and D10 Investments of Lesotho.

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Kilmarnock: hospital under lockdown after ‘serious incident’ say Police Scotland

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Lockdown lifted after Crosshouse hospital stabbing, another incident in town centre and a serious road crash

A lockdown at an Ayrshire hospital has been lifted after police were called to a “serious incident” following reports of a stabbing at the site and another two “potentially linked” incidents in the area.

Crosshouse hospital in Kilmarnock was placed under lockdown for about three hours and ambulances were diverted to University Hospital Ayr while officers dealt with the first incident. It is not currently known who has been injured.

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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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Couple marry on Covid ward 46 years after first meeting

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Ceremony at Coventry university hospital follows urgent Twitter appeal for registrar

A couple have been married in a hospital’s coronavirus ward after an urgent appeal for a registrar, more than 46 years after they first met on the set of a pantomime.

Philip, 78, and Patricia, 88, were married at Coventry university hospital, where Patricia is being treated for Covid-19, on Friday.

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‘We’re being asked to do too much’: NHS workers on fighting the second wave

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Six healthcare workers share how they are coping after nearly a year on the UK’s Covid frontline

With the UK reaching record levels of coronavirus cases in January, pressure on those working in frontline health services has never been greater.

From paramedics to intensive care nurses, the Guardian speaks to six healthcare workers about how they’re coping during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, and how it compares with the first.

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Almost 30% of Covid patients in England readmitted to hospital after discharge – study

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Readmission rate for Covid patients 3.5 times greater, and death rate seven times higher, than for other hospital patients

Nearly a third of people who were discharged from hospitals in England after being treated for Covid-19 were readmitted within five months – and almost one in eight died, a study suggests.

The research, which is still to be peer-reviewed, also found a higher risk of problems developing in a range of organs after hospital discharge in those younger than 70 and ethnic minority individuals.

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First fruits of vaccine rollout ‘should be seen in weeks’

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Experts agree that the impact of the jab will vary regionally and among different groups

Analysts are involved in an urgent effort to gauge the impact of Britain’s mass Covid-19 vaccine campaign and to pinpoint dates when lockdown measures can be eased.

More than 3 million people – most of them elderly or vulnerable individuals or health workers – have already been given jabs. Now researchers are trying to establish when the first fruits of the mass vaccination programme may be seen as the government heads towards its target of immunising more than 13 million people by 15 February.

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Two-thirds of NHS trusts in England treated more Covid patients last week than at peak of first wave

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Exclusive: number of Covid patients could be twice that of April 2020 peak within weeks

Two-thirds of all NHS trusts across England were treating more coronavirus patients last week than they did at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic, a Guardian analysis reveals.

Figures show that in 18 trusts the number of people suffering from coronavirus outnumbered all other patients.

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Ginger root and meteorite dust: the Steiner ‘Covid cures’ offered in Germany

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The movement best known for its schools is firmly entrenched within the German health sector

In a pandemic where global leaders have peddled quack treatments and miracle cures, Germany has often stood out as a shining beacon for science.

It is the country that developed the first diagnostic test to detect the coronavirus, and the first vaccine approved in the west to shield people against the disease. It is a country whose physicist chancellor told parliament she passionately believes “there are scientific findings that are real and should be followed.”

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Ireland has contained South African Covid variant, say health officials

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‘No onward transmission’ from three cases found on Friday but UK variant still surging

Health officials in Ireland, where a more infectious variant of the coronavirus first discovered in England has been surging, said on Saturday they believe three cases of another new variant found in South Africa had been contained.

Ireland is grappling with a Covid-19 surge that has exceeded last year’s first wave. It confirmed the first cases of the more infectious variant found in South Africa on Friday in people who had travelled to Ireland from South Africa over the Christmas holidays.

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ICU medics in London plead with public to follow Covid rules

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Morale plummets as NHS sees ‘grave consequences’ of relaxed rules over Christmas

Intensive care medics in London have made a fresh appeal to the public to comply fully with England’s coronavirus restrictions, as they struggle to deal with more patients than at any time over the last four winters.

Morale among ICU staff is tumbling and concerns have been expressed about a “mass exodus” as the second wave of Covid infections escalates rapidly in London and elsewhere in England. Some doctors and nurses have already quit.

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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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Hospitals without walls: the future of digital healthcare

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In the wake of Covid, doctors and designers are radically adapting their thinking about what a hospital can be and what it should deliver

St Mary’s hospital was slated for a £1bn redevelopment before the pandemic struck, with work due to start in 2027. The main emergency and specialist hospital serving north-west London will still get its upgrade, but it might look quite different now. “Covid-19 has dramatically changed things,” says James Kinross, a surgeon who works at St Mary’s and sits on its redevelopment planning committee.

Before the pandemic, Kinross says, the committee’s goal was to improve the efficiency of existing care pathways; now it’s to rethink those pathways entirely. St Mary’s is a test case, but the shape of healthcare is being reconsidered everywhere and that has major implications for the way hospitals will look in future.

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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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