LONDON (AP) – When the UK surpassed 100,000 dead coronaviruses this week, it was much more than a number for Justin Fleming.
Lying in a hospital bed with COVID-19, he knew how easily one of them could have become, if not the doctors and other employees who worked to save his life.
“I thought I might not see my partner, my mother – be a dead friend, just be a state,” said Fleming, 47, who was rushed to the emergency room. at King’s College Hospital in mid-January, struggling to breathe. His condition improved two weeks after receiving oxygen in an acute care unit.
The scale of the coronavirus outbreak in the UK can seem overwhelming, with tens of thousands of new infections and over 1,000 deaths added every day. But in the COVID-19 wards of hospitals, the pandemic feels both epic and intimate, as staff fight the virus one patient at a time and for no apparent purpose.
Fleming says he was amazed at the diversity of “incredible” staff – including newly qualified doctors, a newly arrived nurse from the Philippines and staff recruited from dental departments and brain injury teams – who eased his isolation and saved him from joining the dead list.
“Because you have to be isolated (with COVID-19), you feel like you’ve just disappeared,” he said. “It’s almost like you could become a non-person in a week.”
Fleming is one of more than 37,000 coronavirus patients treated in UK hospitals, almost double the spring increase. King’s College Hospital, located in a diverse, densely populated area of south London, had almost 800 patients with COVID-19 at the beginning of this winter. A new national deadlock has seen the number drop to a still challenging 630.
Critical care consultant Dr. Jenny Townsend works in a 16-bed intensive care unit that currently has 30 patients, with two tight beds in each bay designed for one. During normal periods, an intensive care nurse cares for a patient. The ratio is now one to four.
“We all feel very laid back and everyone is fooling around to help each other with each of the necessary roles,” Townsend said.
“We do everything we can and we do this in very difficult circumstances. We try to deliver as close as possible to what we normally do, but occasionally due to the number of patients, we have to prioritize what we can and cannot do, ”she said.
This is especially difficult because the care of the coronavirus requires a lot of work. It takes a village of people and skills to treat every critically ill patient.
On a recent day in the ward, Townsend supervised a tracheostomy, inserting a small tube into the patient’s trachea to help him breathe without a ventilator – a small step toward a possible recovery. In the hallway, the Berenice Page family liaison officer made a video call to relatives on the patient’s bed. More than half a dozen employees worked to “tilt” another patient, carefully throwing them on their stomachs to help them breathe easier.
Like others, this hospital had to adapt quickly when COVID-19 first struck in early 2020, finding room for more patients and redeploying medical staff to work in unusual roles. The wards were converted, staff were recruited from other departments into the new COVID wards and the intensive care units were expanded.
Then, after a summer break, when the cases dropped, the hospital had to do it again, when the virus roared in the fall. Many employees find the fight harder the second time around.
“In the first wave, people’s energy levels were better because we were dealing with the unknown and we learned as we went,” said Felicia Kwaku, the hospital’s nurse director. “In this second wave it is worse, because the patients are much sicker, the number is higher, the wave feels more.”
Coronavirus patient Fleming, after seeing the pandemic up close, says that overworked British doctors “need credit now – and help and support”.
“This is a significant historical moment and they have protected the country,” he said.
As the number of patients admitted to London hospitals with COVID-19 gradually decreases, the pressure on doctors will slowly decrease, due to the time lag between infections, hospitalizations and – for the sickest patients – the transfer to intensive care.
This means ongoing challenges for staff, such as the family liaison officer. Every day, she calls the patients’ relatives to update them on their condition, then takes a tablet computer around the ward so that family members, who are not allowed to visit, can see at least their unconscious loved ones.
“It seems like a real privilege to be able to talk to them,” said Page, whose regular job is as a resuscitation coordinator.
“You have a look at the patient’s life when you make video calls and see (relatives) sitting in their homes and some of them have small children. And, yes, I feel their despair. But I also know what a difference it makes, “she said.
“We often talk to people whose relatives will die. It is a very difficult situation. … I think when they talk to us. I can say that I find some, there is some peace for them “, she added.
Kwaku said the pace of inpatients remains “relentless” and urged British people tired of being blocked to continue to follow the rules of social distancing.
She said hospital workers are taking heart from the rapid launch of coronavirus vaccines in the UK. More than 7 million people received the first of two doses.
Kwaku says staff also receive a boost from patients who recover and go home and feel comfortable with those they offer a “good death” without fighting or fear.
“You take every shift as it comes, you take every day as it comes,” she said. “You can fall and get up. You might feel down, get up. You might cry. … But we are here to take care of patients and to take care of each other. ”
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