Covid-19 pressure 'making Morriston Hospital unsafe'

Staff at one of Wales' biggest hospitals said the emergency department had at times not been a safe place due to a sudden increase in coronavirus patients.

Andrew McNab, a consultant at Morriston Hospital's A&E, said staff were "relieved" new restrictions had come into force over Christmas.

There has been an increase in younger patients spending "months" in hospital.

This has caused bed shortages, Mr McNab said.

"We know just looking at the patients coming through the doors and the way the curve is going that actually we were going to be overwhelmed.

"We were having days here, maybe four out of the last 10, when we felt the department was no longer a safe place to be looking after people, but there was nowhere else to look after them."

He warned that the standard of care would suffer should the pressure continue to mount.

"We don't like to drop the standard of care but ultimately when you're having to make decisions about who can fit in and who can't, people wait longer than they would do and sometimes the care they get isn't as good as you would like to give."

Mr McNab warned the impact of the virus on staff was also taking its toll.

"We've got colleagues who had Covid in the first wave who are still not back to normal, and people who've had it early in the second wave who still haven't come back to work because they can't walk more than 15 yards because they're short of breath."

Dr Keith Reid, the director of public health for the hospital's health board, warned: "The virus is running rampant in all communities in the Swansea Bay region.

"That is why we welcomed the move to tier four restrictions on Saturday.

"It's that kind of population-level approach that is going to have the biggest impact, reducing it, getting people to keep themselves to themselves, and that is what will interrupt the transmission of the disease."

Margaret Powell, from Townhill, who is being treated on one of the hospital's Covid wards, said she had "never been so ill".

"I can't get any rest," she told BBC Wales between coughs.

"I just wish to God sometimes I was just dying, but no, I will fight it, I will.

"I just wish all these fools and idiots would stop going around, just wear their masks, cover themselves up, put visors on whatever they want, anything.

"Cover themselves from head to toe if they've got to."

Leighton Smith, 72, from Gorseinon, said he had been ill for a while before his family found him collapsed 10 days ago, shaking and aching.

"I was feeling very, very, very bad. Very scared. I've never been so scared in all my life.

"Gradually now I've got stronger and stronger and I'm off oxygen, feeling stronger all the time. I'm still quite emotional. It's frightening to me.

"It's made me realise how important life is and how important your family is, and to be safe, and keep away and not to do anything stupid, it's just not worth it. There'll always be Christmas again next year."

Mr Smith was supportive of the government's change to the plans for Christmas mixing with other households.

"I wish they'd done it sooner to be honest, you can't mess around with things like this.

"You've got to give up a little bit now to have a longer and better future."

Eleri D'Arcy, who works as an occupational therapist in the intensive care unit, said she was taken aback by how young some patients are.

"We're not talking about little, old, frail people here, we're talking about people in their 40s and 50s who were previously completely independent. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, it's knocked them for six.

"Even for the fittest people that haven't had bouts of Covid strong enough to warrant an ICU stay, members of my team who have had Covid who didn't even have a hospital admission are still recovering weeks and months later, and that's affecting their work and obviously it's affecting the entire workforce then as well.

"The intensity of rehab required to get people back to some level of function has been really quite astounding."

Ms D'Arcy said the pandemic was having a significant effect on staff morale too.

"People are tired from a personal perspective and through work. It's relentless.

"There is only so far people can go and this has been a really long year, and when you see people just flouting the rules and having parties and seemingly not having any grip on the reality of the situation, it's upsetting, it's frustrating."