‘I grieve for the person I was before' - Covid inquiry to begin new phase

The public inquiry into the pandemic will start 10 weeks of hearings on Monday looking at the impact on patients, healthcare workers and the wider NHS.

Covid patients have been admitted to hospital more than a million times in the UK since the virus emerged in 2020, while countless others have had care for other conditions disrupted.

The third stage of the inquiry, external will also examine the impact on NHS staff, the use of masks and PPE in hospitals, the policy of shielding the most vulnerable and the treatment of Long Covid.

And for the first time, the stories of more than 30,000 healthcare staff, patients and relatives will form part of the material entered into evidence.

“It was absolutely horrendous. We were really struggling, having to scrounge around for masks and gloves,“ says Mandi Masters, a community midwife from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

At that early stage the NHS was, she says, “working in the dark” as the virus spread from China to Italy and then to the UK.

Later Mandi caught Covid herself – she is convinced at work – and ended up in hospital on oxygen for three weeks.

“My husband took me to A&E but had to leave me there, turn around and walk away,” she says.

“The news was coming out on how many health professionals were dying of Covid, but I was just too poorly to care at that point,” she says.

“Looking back, I have to admit, it was extremely frightening.”

Mandi, 62, has now returned to work part-time, but still struggles to catch her breath after a short walk.

Every cold or chest infection “wipes her out” and she “grieves for the person I was before Covid”.

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Source: BBC news, 9 September 2024

Related reading on the hub:

The pandemic – questions around Government governance: a blog from David Osborn

Respiratory protective equipment: An unequal solution for healthcare workers? A blog by David Osborn

Raising concerns about PPE and ventilation as a Junior Doctor, a blog by Lindsay Fraser-Moodie

PPE guidance continues to put staff and patients at risk, by Dr David Tomlinson