Heartbreaking footage has revealed Covid patient Tony Brown’s dying wish to see his wife again just a day before he succumbed to Covid-19.
Mr Brown was a patient at the Barnet Hospital in North London where Sky News revealed the harrowing scenes on Covid wards where seriously ill patients are cared for by exhausted and over-stretched NHS staff.
One nurse described the situation inside the Royal Free Hospital in London as like ‘hell’ due to the huge number of ‘really sick’ patients currently being treated on ventilators.
And a morturary manager at the Royal Free Hospital NHS Trust, which runs Barnet Hospital along with the Royal Free, said patients are decades younger in the second wave, with the average age now just 59 – a decade lower than it was the first time around.
London’s hospitals have again been at the centre of England’s coronavirus crisis with wards filled with Covid-19 patients over Christmas and into the new year.
There are currently around 7,044 people in hospital with the virus in capital, with 1,217 on ventilators in intensive care.
Daily admissions and the total number of patients have started to decline in recent days but intensive care units are still busy.
Some hospitals in the capital were forced to convert empty wards into space for coronavirus patients while others warned they might have to send people to other parts of the country if they became too full.
The most recent NHS England data, for the week up to January 17, showed that 92 per cent of beds in the Royal Free were full over the course of the week, with an average of just 71 out of 941 beds available to take new patients.
Its critical care wards were almost completely full for that entire week, with 99 per cent occupancy on average and never more than four of 124 beds free.
Heart-rending footage taken by Sky News showed 73-year-old lorry driver Mr Brown clinging to life in Barnet Hospital – the Royal Free’s sister hospital.
‘We just all hope that we will live, and come out of it,’ he said on Thursday afternoon, speaking from a ward loud with the sound of hissing air used to treat people with coronavirus.
Mr Brown died on Friday night, with his widow, Linda, giving permission for his final interview to be broadcast.
Source: Sky News
Heeeeeeya so sad….. Rip to him