Health staff at King’s College Hospital are concerned about an increase in admissions as the Omicron wave gains traction, but are cautiously optimistic.
Last modified on Monday 20 December 2021 at 08. 39 GMT
On the third floor of one of the nation’s largest hospital trusts, a team of intensive care specialists in masks and visors gathers around an armored bay where a critically ill patient is unconscious, surrounded by wires and tubes.
The elderly’s breathing is assisted through a ventilator and is connected to an arterial line to measure blood pressure. It is fed through a gastric tube and a stack of six nearby monitors provides updates on its status, from oxygen grades to central frequency.
He is one of 14 Covid patients in an extensive care unit that is at full capacity this weekend and is receiving some of the world’s medical care, but his concerned medical team knows about this patient’s long-term diagnosis from the unit at King’s College Hospital in South London. and many like him, are not sure.
Staff who spoke to the Observer on a stopover in Covid wards said most of the dangerously ill patients recently admitted to critical beds were not vaccinated.
King’s medical groups are bracing for a new influx of patients inflamed with the fast-spreading variant of Omicron and urging others to receive their jabs.
Approximately one-third of patients transferred to intensive care beds with Covid will die, according to several studies conducted on the pandemic. Most will gradually improve over a week to 10 days, and a small number will require a long-term remedy, for 3 months or more. – in the unit.
Doctors and nurses say they are deeply involved in the number of critically ill patients transferred to extensive care beds who are not yet vaccinated.
Michael Bartley, an intensive care nurse at King’s, estimated that “80 to 90 percent” of the hospital’s intensive care beds were vaccinated.
He said: “We’re not here to judge patients, we’re here to treat them, but it can be a scary place. If the patient is too sick, we will take care of his breathing by sensing and ventilating him. “
“The disease can affect each and every organ in the body, and the long-term effects can be devastating. We have a number of patients who have been with us for more than a hundred days. The age of those who are not vaccinated is about 35 to 65 years. The message is ‘please get vaccinated’. “
The proportion of unvaccinated patients in King’s intensive care beds is higher than in the rest of the country. A report by the charity Intensive Care National Audit
London, however, has the lowest proportion of over-12s vaccinated in England. Nearly a third of Londoners are unvaccinated, and many are now receiving emergency medical assistance as a new wave of pandemic hits the country.
Dr Laura-Jane Smith, a breathing representative working in a Covid ward at King’s, said on Friday: “I saw 4 new patients admitted to the ward this morning aged between 40 and 90. Not everyone is vaccinated.
“I have not sent those who have had vaccines to extensive care recently. Even if other vaccinated people are in poor health, they are not in poor health. Those who see the house pass much faster and with fewer complications. It’s hard to hear that in poor health, other people say, “I wish they got me the vaccine. “
Smith and his colleagues now face the prospect of another NHS winter crisis as Omicron spreads across the country. She said: “We hope to be sure that it can’t be as bad as last January, because it’s terrible. “
Last week (seven days until Friday, December 17), another 5,538 people tested positive for Covid in Southwark, the hospital’s local district, representing an 188% increase from last week.
On Friday, the UK reported a record number of new Covid instances for the third day in a row, with 93,045 new instances. Hospital admissions in London are at the place where Omicron has been temporarily established.
Scientists from the London School of Hygiene
On Friday at 8:45 a. m. m. , in a convention room on the ground floor of King’s, staff held a briefing on incident coordination, with 90 staff members participating online from about 20 departments.
The 724-bed hospital already has a 97 percent occupancy rate and, according to recent government peak data, of 119 extensive care beds, only five are free. Staff are falling or isolating at an alarming rate.
Plans are being developed to double the number of extensive care beds into two sets and convert other facilities for Covid patients. It is accepted as true that lately he is worrying about 142 Covid patients, up from 773 at the peak of the wave of the moment in January. Of these, 17 are in intensive care beds.
Lesley Powls, chief of contingency making plans and operations at the King’s clinic, likened the intense preparation to an “incredible moment of calm” before a tsunami.
She said: “It’s my job to write down the plans and put them in place. And there’s a moment when you think, “Okay, we’re ready. “Powls said early indications were that the patients who were admitted were not as in poor health as in past waves.
She said, “Last year, as Christmas and New Year’s approached, we saw patients coming to our emergency branch who were in such poor health that they were going to receive extensive care as first entry position.
“What we’re seeing right now are patients who go to general for maybe 24 to 48 hours and then they can go home. We genotyped all our samples and, in fact, we witness a very evocative genotyping of Omicron. “
It is possible that there are several points affected in this reduction in severity: those that come with the effect of vaccines, the most important pharmacological treatments, and the possible reduction in the severity of Omicron. This is good news because it means that Covid patients can be discharged this time. at approximately the same rate at which they are admitted.
Powls said early indications were that accepting as true would have the ability to cope and that she was looking to make sure other facilities were available to non-Covid patients. He said the facility may be overwhelmed, but he did not see this as a significant threat based on the evidence he had noticed to date.
A report from Imperial College London published last week found no evidence that Omicron has a lower severity than the Delta variant, but said more knowledge is needed. He said booster shots would be imperative to mitigate the effect of the virus. .
Doctors say that no matter how severe the Omicron variant is, they are grateful for the diversity of remedies available now to help patients. These include anti-inflammatory dexamethasone, the first drug that has been shown to save the lives of other people with Covid, and antiviral drugs that add remdesivir.
Hospital staff say the speed at which vaccines and new remedies have been made is “phenomenal” and is a ray of gentleness in the fight against the disease.
Professor Clive Kay, chief executive of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said one of his main considerations was to ensure there were enough staffing degrees to meet demand. Remote or unhealthy due to Covid has an increase from 160 to 517 in just over a week, on top of the same old absences from the workforce. Last Friday, 242 nurses were in poor health, isolated or worried about a family member.
Professor Kay said: “This means that we want to eliminate some of the non-urgent activities of the regime. “
It showed that initial knowledge advised that recent peak Covid admissions were “not as sick” as past waves. He said that in the h8 of the first wave in the spring of last year, about one in four or five patients needed intensive care. about one in seven or 8 now.
Hospital staff, whose efforts have been described through Professor Kay as “truly incredible,” don’t know what the coming weeks and months will bring, but say they are in a position to cope with whatever comes through the doors.
Professor Kay said: “We can’t say we can’t possibly cope because we have no choice. We will simply have to cope.
This view is shared by hospital staff, who have had little respite. Intensive care nurse Bartley said: “We haven’t turned a patient down and we’re incredibly proud of that. We will respond and care for patients in the most productive way of our abilities. each and every time. “