Alex George Warns NHS May Not Be Able To ‘Cope’ If Coronavirus Cases Rise Rapidly
By Cara Dudgeon
4 years ago
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'I've been testing around eight patients a shift - and the NHS can easily cope with that level, but if we start seeing 50 or 60 a day, the pressure will be on'.
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'In our A&E department, we only have one isolation room for infectious diseases, with one bed, not the 15 or 20 beds you might imagine.
'If numbers rise, we would have to quarantine whole wards.
'At the moment, frontline staff are being offered extra shifts and I know some who are working seven days a week.
'In the short term, you can do that. If this was going to be around for a month, everyone could take on a couple of extra shifts.
'But this looks like it will be around a good few months and it's very difficult to sustain that over a period of time, as it becomes unsafe for people to work.
'If this carries on for a long time, fatigue and stress will set in.
'If over the next six months, one in five people have it we can deal with it. But if four in five people catch it, the NHS simply can't cope'.
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