Doctors and nurses at one of the city region’s hospital trusts are “prepared for the worst” as the number of Covid patients continues to soar to record levels.
A third of patients at Whiston and St Helens hospitals now have Covid-19 and medical director Rowan Pritchard Jones expects that number to keep rising for at least another two weeks.
On Friday (January 22), when the number of Covid-positive patients at the two hospitals reached a record 274, Professor Pritchard Jones said: “We are prepared for the worst. We are prepared for numbers that will cross 300, which I’m sure they will.
“A third of our hospital beds now have Covid patients in them, and that’s huge because we still have all the same winter pressures that we normally do.”
During the first wave, patient numbers peaked at 153 - half the level Prof Pritchard Jones expects to see in the current wave as Whiston and St Helens continue to admit a ward’s worth of Covid-19 patients every day.
He said: “Make no mistake, to be in hospital with Covid, these represent poorly, poorly patients. This represents a huge pressure on frontline staff.
“In the first wave we did what the government told us to - empty the hospital. That’s just not been a choice at the height of winter.
“It takes a heroic effort every day to bring in a ward’s worth of patients each day. We are regularly seeing 30 patients, and that’s just Covid.”
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Although case numbers peaked around January 8, Prof Pritchard Jones said the lag between people catching the virus and then becoming ill enough to need hospital treatment meant the situation in his hospitals would not improve for “easily another couple of weeks”.
He added: “The pressure on ITU will continue beyond that because it’s often only after a week of being very poorly in hospital that patients find their way onto ITU.”
Amid the pressure, Prof Pritchard Jones said he was “incredibly proud” of staff at the two hospitals.
He said: “We’ve done this for nearly 12 months now and it’s now in month 12 that we are facing our toughest time ever.
“You are humbled by what our staff do. What they are doing every day, moving to a different ward, putting on a different uniform.
“And then at the end of the day you head home with a sense of satisfaction that we’ve coped and we’ve cared and we will do it all the next day.”
Despite preparing for the worst, Prof Pritchard Jones added that he “hoped for the best from our community” and that people would continue to follow the rules and stay at home or wear a mask if they did have to go out.
He said: “It is absolutely essential. Whilst I prepare for the worst, I hope for the best from our community to help us get on top of this and that help means stop the spread in the community.
“It’s an utter tragedy for individual families when the virus spreads perhaps because of an unnecessary trip somewhere.
“I know our community is weary and perhaps that was the moment when the virus was passed on and inadvertently taken home to vulnerable families, so we have all got to make that additional effort to stay safe.
“Keep a mask on, don’t travel unless you have to, that’s the only way we’re going to stop this. Everyone’s got to make that additional effort, please.”
He also took aim at the small group of people who continue to deny the existence of Covid-19 or claim it is not as serious as it is.
He said: “The job of my staff is difficult enough every day and it’s made all the more painful when they make the efforts to provide that care in the face of people who say it isn’t real.
“I really feel for my staff in that way.”
But despite the enormous pressure on NHS staff as a result of the pandemic, Prof Pritchard Jones was keen to emphasise that the hospital was still open for other problems.
He said people were often hanging on too long at home, meaning they had to be admitted when if they had come to hospital a day or two earlier they could have been treated and discharged on that same day.
He said: “If you need us, please come. We are here, we are open and we are ready to provide the safest possible care.”
