Three nurses who were forced to wear bin bags on their shifts due to a shortage in personal protective equipment have tested positive for coronavirus.
According to Daily Telegraph reports the nurses, who worked at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, posted pictures of themselves wearing clinical waste bags after the hospital ran out of stock.
More than 50 per cent of staff working on one ward have now tested positive for coronavirus.
Proper equipment
One nurse told how they desperately needed proper equipment, and were already having to treat their colleagues after they had caught the virus from patients.
She said: “There are so many younger people here on ventilation – many with asthma, or diabetes. They can’t stop coughing, they just cough and cough and cough and they can’t help it – but there’s little we can do apart from try to help them breathe.
“Sometimes the body just gives up, and they die. We can’t save them. The worst part is that we can’t allow their relatives in to say goodbye.”
This is so incredibly shocking. Even though it’s also so incredibly surprisinghttps://t.co/HHxREAG759
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) April 9, 2020
Frontline NHS workers
The news comes as a doctor passed away shortly after writing to the Prime Minister asking for him to provide more PPE to frontline NHS workers.
Abdul Mabud Chowdhury wrote to Boris Johnson on March 18th asking him to “urgently” ensure “each and every NHS worker in the UK” is provided with PPE.
He told the PM that healthcare workers “are in direct contact with patients” and have a “human right like others to live in this world disease-free with our family and children”.
He passed away today after 15 days in hospital.
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