Covid inquiry told how putting on PPE delayed treatment of dying patients

Dying patients experienced vital delays in being treated by paramedics because of the time it took ambulance crews to put on protective personal equipment, the Covid inquiry has been told.

An ambulance technician, Mark Tilley, came close to tears on Tuesday as he described how the experience still “played on his mind”.

Ambulance crews had been told they could not put on PPE before arriving at the scene and had to wait to put on plastic Tyvek suits and protective hoods or masks.

Tilley told the inquiry that the delays could cost crews vital minutes before they were able to start treatment. “We could have actually been at the patient’s side a minute, minute and a half quicker in those really most serious cases,” he said.

“Turning up at people’s houses where someone was unfortunately dead inside the front window or just on the pathway up to their property … I would have normally gone over and started bouncing up and down on their chest [to perform CPR], but we went and got our masks and suits on, and all of that – that plays on my mind all the time.”

Tilley, an ambulance technician at South East Coast ambulance service who was giving evidence as a representative of the GMB union, also described how the inadequate PPE made him consider making his own protective equipment.

Aprons were so poorly made and in such short supply, he said, that “we seriously considered using bin bags and literally cutting a hole in them, because that way they wouldn’t blow up in front of your face” when outside.

In addition to flimsy aprons, protective gloves were out of date, “really cheap and nasty”, and ripped and tore easily.

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Source: The Guardian, 1 October 2024

Further reading on the hub:

• Covid-19 : A risk assessment too far? A blog by David Osborn