An A&E doctor treating coronavirus patients has lashed out as they claim government inaction have left doctors to die like “lambs to the slaughter”.
The scathing tweets, given by an anonymous ‘doctor in the north’ described the scenes at the hospital as “utter carnage”.
The comments claim doctors have been left to treat coronavirus patients with “crappy paper masks”.
In a series of tweets posted earlier today (Tues) by palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke, on behalf of an anonymous doctor, she slammed Health Secretary Matt Hancock for putting doctors at risk and branded it a “betrayal”.
This comes as the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told MPs this afternoon that as many as 55,000 people in the UK could already have the killer virus.
The A&E doctor, based in the North of England, told Dr Clarke many healthcare professionals are resigned to the fact some will die.
He said: “The herd immunity plan was always going to end up with thousands of sick, infectious people swamping the hospitals.
“Did no-one actually think about the doctors and nurses who are going to die because of this plan? Did no-one think to start stockpiling PPE in January?”
“Matt Hancock is totally deluded if he thinks ventilators are what’s key here. What’s the point of ventilators if the doctors and nurses who need to use him are already dead?
“How can they not be protecting the very people they are asking to look after the patients?”
“I mean even if they don’t give a s*** about NHS staff – and clearly they don’t – don’t they actually want a healthy workforce to care for the patients? Who looks after the patients when the doctors start dying?”
“I feel betrayed, I feel scared, I feel like we are basically lambs to the slaughter. Paper masks and plastic aprons. What a f***** betrayal.”
Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced yesterday (16/3) the NHS would be cancelling non-emergency procedures to focus on fighting Covid-19.
The government also advised against gatherings at pubs and restaurants, and for over-70s to self-isolate for a period of 12 weeks.
This came after a report by scientists at Imperial College London who warned the government that if they didn’t change course a quarter of a million people would die in a “catastrophic epidemic”.
The furious doctor added: “It is absolute carnage in A&E. Utter chaos. We don’t have any proper PPE [protective gear]. We are being given crappy paper masks, not the FFP3 masks we need.
“And not everyone even gets those. Literally the doctors seeing the sickest patients, the ones with suspected heart attacks, PEs, sepsis – all they have to protect themselves is a bit of paper across their mouth as if that would ever do anything to protect them.
“There are all the Covid patients but then there are also all the other severely sick patients. People aren’t stopping having RTAs and heart attacks and strokes and broken hips, are they? It’s all here and it’s utter carnage.
“I am in shock. I feel like we are being thrown to the wolves here. Some of us are going to die. We know some will die.
“And the government just clearly doesn’t give a s*** about us, do they? I mean, we’ve known since January this was coming. We all knew it.”
ENDS
