Coronavirus: Europe

UK health workers fatigued amid second wave

Situation hardly better elsewhere in Europe with resurgence in Spain, Belgium, Germany

A mural depicting National Health Service nurse Melanie Senior in Manchester's Northern Quarter. Britain is swamped by a second wave of Covid-19 infections that could pose an even bigger test than the first wave for its overextended health service.
A mural depicting National Health Service nurse Melanie Senior in Manchester's Northern Quarter. Britain is swamped by a second wave of Covid-19 infections that could pose an even bigger test than the first wave for its overextended health service. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

As Britain becomes subsumed by a second wave of coronavirus infections and deaths, the country's doctors and nurses are bracing themselves for what is expected to be a deluge of new patients over the next six months.

But unlike in the spring, they say they are now facing the pandemic without the same sense of caution among a coronavirus-weary public or a clear government strategy to contain the virus and deal with rapidly filling intensive care units.

As a result, morale is wilting among overstretched health workers.

Hospitals have cancelled non-essential operations and transferred patients to nearby facilities, a result of crowding caused in part by the government's effort to restart elective procedures halted in the spring. Some emergency units are already telling non-urgent patients to stay away again.

"We've been through it once before, and it wasn't very nice, but there was an end to it," said Dr Alison Pittard, dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine. "Whereas now, this is going to go on for much longer. We did not and do not have enough staff."

When the coronavirus first hit Britain in the spring, the National Health Service ordered hospitals to empty beds and stop elective procedures. Heeding government appeals, many people stayed away by choice.

Politicians across the political spectrum largely accepted the need for the first lockdown, and doctors limped through the crisis, fuelled by adrenaline and the hope that the government could keep an eventual resurgence of cases from inundating the health service again.

But that has not happened. With 367 deaths and 22,885 confirmed cases on Tuesday alone, Britain is swamped by a second wave of infections that could pose an even bigger test than the first wave for its overextended health service.

The situation is hardly better elsewhere in Europe.

A resurgence of Covid-19 cases in Spain has pushed exhausted doctors to stage their first national strike in 25 years on Tuesday to demand better working conditions and greater recognition.

About 85 per cent of Spain's 267,000 doctors took part in the walkout although most of them did so symbolically as they continued to see patients, said the State Confederation of Medical Union.

  • 367

    Number of Covid-19 deaths in Britain on Tuesday.

  • 22,885

    Number of confirmed cases in Britain on the same day.

Clad in white lab coats, dozens of them protested outside Parliament in Madrid at a safe distance from one another, many holding posters of a large black boot about to stomp on a group of healthcare workers.

One of them said "the straw that broke the camel's back" was a government decree saying they could be assigned to other hospital services, regardless of their specialisation, whenever needed.

Belgian hospitals are so overwhelmed that officials asked doctors infected with the coronavirus to work if they were not showing symptoms. Its government is considering a new national lockdown, with the country now suffering the highest rate of coronavirus infections. The nation of 11 million people had 1,390 new infections per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks, according to official data. It also has one of the highest per capita Covid-19 fatality rates in the world.

Likewise in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to press regional leaders to agree to a partial lockdown in Germany which would see restaurants and bars closed but keep schools open, as the number of new infections hit a record high. Cases rose to 464,239 yesterday with 10,183 deaths.

The drastic measures, to take effect from Nov 4, will allow people to go out only with members from their own and one other household.

In many ways, doctors in Britain are better equipped to handle the second wave of a pandemic that has killed roughly 60,000 people in the country, the highest toll in Europe.

The scarcities that panicked doctors in March - of face masks, testing kits and oxygen - have largely been alleviated. Doctors have learnt to delay using ventilators.

But a decision by the health service to restore normal services in Britain has meant that there are fewer unoccupied hospital beds than there were in the spring and fewer doctors who can be redeployed to coronavirus wards.

Making matters worse, hospitals are already treating the usual wintertime stream of flu and other illnesses that, even in a normal year, can push bed occupancy rates past 95 per cent.

As a sense of battle fatigue sets in, many health workers are calling in sick.

"The first time around, it's almost like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of medical challenge," said Dr Paul Whitaker, a respiratory doctor in Bradford, northern England, where the number of coronavirus patients has returned to its early May peak.

"But the prospect of going into another six months is relatively frightening. How are you going to maintain the morale, the focus and the energy of all these people?"

NYTIMES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on October 29, 2020, with the headline UK health workers fatigued amid second wave. Subscribe