Doctor highlights 'huge amount of anxiety' as NHS gets 'flooded with a tsunami'

Yet another doctor has warned of the NHS being “flooded with a tsunami of really sick Covid-19 patients”, raising alarm that mistakes at the highest levels will result in a disaster.

Dr Guddi Singh, a paediatrician drafted in to treat adult Covid-19 patients, said there was “huge amount of anxiety” among NHS staff over contacting coronavirus, the BBC reported.

“The NHS is about to be flooded with a tsunami of really sick Covid-19 patients that we do not have the capacity to deal with and there is a huge amount of confusion around the use and availability of PPE,” she said.

London’s hospitals were “overwhelmed”, and there was “still a serious shortage of PPE”, she noted.

Singh also raised the issue of NHS frontline workers not being tested for the virus, adding that she herself “transmitting the disease” and “contributing to the epidemic”,

“There are no tests available to health workers... it's just ridiculous,” she said.

Singh said mistakes at the highest levels would result in a disaster in the UK, adding that there was a massive lack of clarity in guidance from the top.

She added that some of her colleagues felt “completely helpless”.

“We have just been told to close our eyes when any patient coughs,” she quoted some of her colleagues as saying.

Under severe pressure, the government maintained that it was increasing patient capacity and sourcing PPE.

Health experts, meanwhile, warned life may not return to normal for six months or longer as the country’s death toll crossed 1,200, with at least 17,089 confirmed cases.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus, wrote to every UK household, asking people to stay at home and follow the social distancing rules to fight the pandemic, warning them “things will get worse before they get better”.