4 Apr 2021
Emergency field hospitals established across the country by the British government at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds are being stood down and decommissioned, in many cases without having treated a single patient for coronavirus.
12 so-called ‘Nightingale’ hospitals named for a famed 19th-century British nurse who revolutionised healthcare practices were established across the United Kingdom in 2020, part of a plan to see the nation prepared for a sudden surge in critical coronavirus cases. Built inside sports stadia, convention centers, and former retail premises, the sites provided thousands of extra beds.
Now more of the Nightingale hospitals are being shut down without having seen a single patient. The 500-bed Yorkshire Nightingale has now been stood down, the BBC reports, and like some others, it has not treated a single Coronavirus patient since it was opened in April 2020.
18 Dec 2020
There were at least 4.4 million fewer scans between April and September, many of which could have been life-saving, after the National Health Service (NHS) was told in March to cancel all non-essential appointments because of the Chinese coronavirus.
Analysis conducted by the BBC found that ultrasounds and CT and MRI scans fell by one-third during that period.
NHS England also admitted that the backlog for services is so great that one-in-seven people waiting for a scan have been on the list for more than three months.
Cancer Research UK warns that the delays could mean more people presenting to medical services in a worse condition than they would have had they been allowed to seek treatment earlier.
14 Dec 2020
A 27-year-old father of two who “begged” an NHS hospital for an MRI scan during the major lockdown earlier this year has died of cancer. His wife has blamed his death on the delay in diagnosis.
Sherwin Hall, from West Yorkshire, had first visited Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust on March 23rd with leg pains, but after subsequent visits was misdiagnosed with prostatitis and given a course of antibiotics. His pain persisted and after 13 visits to hospital in a four-week period and repeatedly “begging” for the assessment, he finally received the MRI scan on May 26th.
Doctors found a malignant tumour, nearly six inches long, in his pelvis. The scan also revealed 30 other smaller tumours in his lungs. Mr Hall passed away last week, according to Sky News.