Posted 26 September 2024 - 14:53
Posted 26 September 2024 - 14:53
News
COVID-19 inquiry: nurses describe scenes ‘from hell’ on wards
Former national clinical adviser tells COVID-19 inquiry of the trauma experienced by nurses, who ran out of body bags and basic supplies, were faced with sick patients ‘raining from the sky’ and had recurring nightmares. Kevin Fong says what he witnessed on the intensive care units during the pandemic was ‘like nothing else I have ever seen’.
Former clinical adviser tells COVID-19 inquiry about nurses’ stories of running out of body bags, recurring nightmares and sick patients ‘raining from the sky’
A senior medic has broken down in tears as he described scenes ‘from hell’ on intensive care units (ICUs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, with nurses running out of body bags and staff forced to wear adult nappies because they had no time for toilet breaks.
Giving evidence to the COVID-19 inquiry, NHS England’s former national clinical adviser in emergency preparedness, resilience and response, Kevin Fong, said nurses experienced recurring nightmares because of the scale of death on ICUs, where sick patients were ‘raining from the sky’.
He added: ‘The scale of death experienced by the ICU teams during COVID was unlike anything they had ever seen before. I worked on a shift where we had six deaths in a single shift. Another hospital told us they had ten deaths on a shift, two of whom were their own staff.’
Recounting nurses’ traumatic experiences during pandemic
Professor Fong told the inquiry that staff had shared ‘shocking accounts’ about routinely running out of basic supplies, such as bougies and endotracheal tubes.
‘One said that sometimes they were so overwhelmed that they were putting patients in body bags, lifting them from the bed, putting them on the floor, and putting another patient in that bed straight away because there wasn’t time,’ he said.
‘We went to another hospital where things got so bad, they were so short of resources that they ran out of body bags, and they were instead issued with 9ft clear plastic sacks and cable ties.
‘And those nurses talk about being really traumatised by that, because they had recurring nightmares about feeling like they were just throwing bodies away. It really was like nothing else I have ever seen.’
‘Patients were so close together they could hold hands’
Professor Fong told the inquiry that after visiting an ICU that was one of the hardest hit by COVID-19 admissions in the country, he would never forget speaking to an intensive care registrar who told him: ‘It’s been like a terrorist attack every day since it started, and we don’t know when the attacks are going to stop.’
He heard that ‘patients were so close together they could hold hands’, and added that ‘nurses were nursing at a ratio of one specialist intensive care nurse to six intensive care patients’.
Nurses ‘faced an almost unimaginable scale of death’
In response to Professor Fong’s comments at the inquiry, RCN general secretary Nicola Ranger said: ‘Today’s evidence profoundly captures the relentless devastation nursing staff faced during the pandemic.
‘Despite trying to give patients the best care, they faced an almost unimaginable scale of death in a health and care system that was completely overwhelmed.
‘A lack of preparedness exposed nursing staff to a dangerous disease and severe trauma, forcing them to risk their own health trying to hold together services wracked by widespread staff shortages.
‘It is a shocking indictment of the way nursing was left to fend for itself and a reminder of why we desperately need safe nurse-patient ratios.’
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