hospital wards now turned into zones for
contagion nobody could have prepared
them for what was to come
st. Elias respiratory ward the contrast
from the intensive care unit we saw
yesterday at the Trust's epsilon site
couldn't be greater there it was full
protection head-to-toe
today the rules say just a surgical mask
and so we turned it into what's called
what I read area
this is nursing like they have never
known 60 year old Rosana Goodsell had
been here for five days and sitting off
this better often anymore more anything
I've seen my legs and my stomach you
know
yeah it is mind over matter the patients
here in st. Helens covered wards are not
so sick that they need to be an
intensive care how was she
but that's expected but the ones we
spoke to seemed shell-shocked not just
their breath but what had happen to them
and the staff they don't have time to
process this they just have to get on
with it
we have lots of staff doing things that
they've never done before so we've got
people who worked in ophthalmology for
instance swabbing patients something
start something in our pods so that
staff can get the results that we have
therapists to have just done
musculoskeletal stuff working in I to
you looking after patients and ITU as
part of the team
so the response on staff has been
fantastic and we meet lily and Bishop
Campbell a dietician preparing to go
into the red zone with the sicker more
infectious patients to help with lunch
the staff have had to adapt the hospital
has had to change their learning as they
go and they're asking questions like the
government which has now announced an
inquiry into whether black Asian and
minority ethnic people are
disproportionately affected by covered
19 well they'd already noticed that here
for me as a DME chief nurse it's
important to record I recognize it I
know that you know vme staff probably
working very differently with a very
different kind of burden in terms of
we're here we have families that are
hundreds and thousands of miles away
some of them but but staff are just
really positive have been responding I
think coming to work I'm doing the best
that they can do the patient Epsom and
st. Elias was one of the first trusts in
the country to be hit by the wave of
covered 19 patients keeping them alive
on ventilators giving hundreds at a time
oxygen they needed new tanks and new
piping it's something you would never
think of a CT scanner in the car park so
non-covered patients don't have to go
into the hospital
showing your movements of your wrists
virtual consultations they've had to
reschedule 96,000 appointments so when
one of the operating theaters in have
some General Hospital on a normal day we
would have been doing quite a lot of
cancer diagnostic and cancer treatment
surgery in this theater and as you can
see it's empty the government bought up
all of the capacity of the private
hospitals and we have two local private
hospitals and we have been sending all
of our urgent cancer patients and the
urgent plant care operations to them to
be operated on we've been filming for
two days now at Epsom and now here at
Saint Helier and the thing that stands
out the most for those of us who spend a
lot of time coming in and out of
hospitals is just how quiet it is there
aren't the patients and the staff and
the corridors they're all busy on the
wards or they're actually simply not
here they're being kept away I would you
see I'm talking to you if I'd a lot of
pain on me I could understand it but
didn't just Cayman you know me their
lungs
that's where we got me they're very
frightening very frightening indeed when
they said that you can go yeah no it's
not a nice thing to be told you know
when you're told you got day on yeah
there's not a lot you can do about it is
there really you weren't you were right
worried that you would go downhill that
you would why'd he go downhill quick I
went down a little bit too quick for my
liking dear but I've got very good
people around me mr. Smith has been in
hospital for two weeks he spent his 75th
birthday in here in a neighboring room
was 89 year old Brian Mason a former
policeman about to be released after 12
days what was interesting was these two
men had very different symptoms I had me
four days and now I've I've then started
eating and I think from then on I've
started feeling that much better
were you ever worried that you were
gonna get even more sick did they warn
you that you could deteriorate yes
what did they say I think you know kind
of fitness so the fact that they thought
that I'd been a bit lucky do you feel
you've been lucky yeah I do yeah
very at my age
outside another ward we meet Cheryl
Gillick waiting to be let in to see her
dying mother it too is an amber zone
meaning there could be some covered
patients but the hospital recognizes the
need for relatives to say goodbye and
she's been given 24 to 48 hours
and they're letting you go in and see
her yes under they said under
exceptional circumstances because you
don't think it's long now yeah so much
has had to change it can never be the
same again the NHS will work in
different ways from now on
but life and death that is a constant
yes and we've just had some news in from
public health England they've just
issued some new guidance on PPE personal
protective equipment and they are saying
where there are acute shortages some
time of extreme shortages they're
talking about the reuse of some PPP PPE
are talking about masks for instance
which could be reused some types of
masks and gowns they're talking about
maybe replacing them with lab coats or
washable long sleeve patient coats now
what's interesting about this is that it
is an agreement really that there is a
problem with the supply chain and I can
fairly well guess this is not going to
go down very well with staff who are
already worried about the type of PPE
that they're having to use not
necessarily at the Epsom st. Elias I
mean across the board