From: slider@atashram.com

Rosena Allin-Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting and an A&E doctor, is still working regular shifts. On Sunday she worked at St George’s hospital in
her south London constituency. She explains how the coronavirus pandemic
has affected staff:

I’ve been an A&E doctor for 15 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this before. The departments are quieter because people are staying away
from hospital, but the patients are sicker. We’re seeing a distinct rise
in the numbers coming in with respiratory symptoms, who are testing
Covid-19 positive.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/london-covid-19-doctor-staff-choose-whose-life-to-save

On Sunday, very early in the morning, the entire resuscitation department, where the absolute sickest patients go, was full to capacity with patients
with breathing difficulties. We had to move other very ill patients to the paediatric resuscitation area to keep them safe.

This is only set to get worse. We’re seeing patients now who would have
only contracted the virus two weeks ago. In the coming 10 days we expect
the entire A&E department will be taken up with suspected Covid-19
patients.

Doctors and nurses are brave, and the A&E department is known for being on
the frontline and high risk, but there’s a palpable fear among staff for three reasons. Firstly, they’re frightened for their own health and those
of the people they love. When I finished my shift yesterday, which was Mother’s Day, I came back to the house and I couldn’t touch or hug my two little girls until I put all my clothes in the wash and had a shower.

The second reason is that staff expect, very soon, potentially to have to
make heart-wrenching choices about whose life can be saved if we don’t
have enough ventilators. That goes counter to everything you’ve ever
learned as a doctor or nurse – to make life-and-death decisions, where we could possibly have saved every one of those people, is unimaginable. This
is what our colleagues in Italy are living through now.

Third, the patterns described thus far for symptoms of coronavirus are not
what we’re now seeing in the emergency department. We’re seeing young, previously very healthy people, who are ill in hospital. Some are in their
30s, and they need ventilators to stay alive. Some patients are presenting
with abdominal pain, which we hadn’t heard of before. A person can come in and say they have a stomach pain, and they’re put in the “green” area of the department – but then they mention they also have a cough. Everybody should be assumed to be Covid-positive until proven otherwise at this
point.

### - it's starting to get a bit rough here now huh, and not just for the
aged!

16 deaths from it to date in my local/nearest hospital...

perhaps this thing is worse than they been letting-on?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)