Southend Hospital will ‘restrict services’ without more protective equipment
Staff at Essex’s Southend Hospital have warned they may have to limit services if they do not receive more protective equipment to treat coronavirus patients.
Frontline staff at the hospital wrote to management to say that if they did not get an increase in personal protective equipment (PPE) by the end of the day they will introduce “restricted services”.
An estimated 25 per cent of frontline staff at the hospital are off sick with coronavirus symptoms.
They told hospital chief executive Clare Panniker that there was limited stock of PPE and what was available was being rationed, according to BBC Essex.
The letter also said staff were “petrified” of working in high-risk areas with Covid-19 patients.
In a statement, Southend Hospital said: “We are fully complying with the Public Health England guidance on the use of personal protective equipment which has been developed by expert clinicians and is being followed by the whole of the NHS.
“There are no issues whatsoever with the cost of equipment. It has been made clear that cost is not an issue in keeping our staff protected. What is important is that the supplies of PPE equipment across the NHS are used responsibly so there is enough to go round.”
It comes after 10,000 NHS staff penned a letter yesterday to Boris Johnson to demand that more equipment is delivered to hospitals.
The government has insisted on numerous occasions that the UK has enough PPE to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak, but that it is having problems in delivering it to hospitals.
Deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries said yesterday that there had been “distribution issues”.
Labour MP, and A and E doctor, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan told ITV today that the situation was dire.
She said: “It is simply not acceptable that frontline NHS and care staff do not have the PPE that they need not only to keep themselves safe, but to stop the spread of infection to those they love when they come home – and most importantly between the patients that they are trying to so desperately treat.”