By Michael J. Rigby The COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious challenge to our existing healthcare infrastructure. Rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 can easily overwhelm healthcare capacity, which can exceed the number of intensive care unit beds and ventilators. Once this threshold is surpassed, any serious yet treatable disease becomes life-threatening. Without a vaccine or other preventive […]
Month: June 2020
How should non-life-saving surgery be rationed?
Helen Turnham, Guy Thorburn and Dominic Wilkinson. The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a total shut down of elective surgery within the NHS. In the forthcoming months there will be re-initiation of elective surgery but at significantly reduced capacity. The combination of pre-existing backlog, a protracted period of no surgery and an anticipated future period of […]
TOO NEAR BUT SO FAR
By Anna Perry Anna Perry was previously a GP partner and is now a speciality doctor on the inpatient unit at the Marie Curie West Midlands hospice. She writes about her thoughts on the discomfort of being distanced from patients and families by Covid whilst being a bridge to their private moments. . During lockdown […]
Pandemic preparedness: Fail to prepare, prepare to fail
By Lorcan O’Byrne. As students cannot match the knowledge, skills and clinical experience of a qualified doctor, one might then contend that their involvement in the care of a patient with COVID-19 would primarily be for the students’ educational benefit, rather than for the provision of meaningful healthcare. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic is necessitating that […]
Discounts for doctors. Gratitude and desert in a pandemic
By Catriona Boyd and Joshua Parker. Displays of gratitude towards healthcare workers have risen throughout the pandemic. Many businesses have offered free or discounted products and services. Morrisons, for example, announced a 10% discount for all NHS workers to “support them” during the COVID-19 pandemic; and they are by no means exceptional. This isn’t limited […]
COVID-19 in India: an epidemic in congested cities
WHO declared COVID-19 as Global Pandemic on March 12, 2020, at present, it is devasting entire World with 5691,790 cases and 355,629 deaths [1]. India reported the first case of COVID-19 in end of January 2020, and total reported cases crossed 1,58,000 cases with 4,534 deaths on May 27, 2020. COVID-19 is primarily transmitted […]