Prof @Kevin_Fong giving the most devastating and moving testimony to the Covid Inquiry of visiting hospital intensive care units at the height of the second wave in late Dec 2020.
The unimaginable scale of death, the trauma, the loss of hope.
Please watch this 2min clip.
And here he breaks down while explaining the absolute trauma experienced by smaller hospitals in particular - the "healthier" ICU patients were transferred out, leaving them coping with so much death.
They felt so alone.
Here Prof Fong explains how every nurse he met was traumatised by watching patients die, being only able to hold up ipads to their relatives and how it went against their normal practice of trying to ensure a dignified death, with family there.
Smaller hospitals in particular ran out of drugs, equipment, nurses, PPE. They felt abandoned. There is zero doubt that the NHS was overwhelmed during both of the first two waves.
By June 2021 ICU staff described themselves as broken.
Towards the end of his testimony, Prof Fong makes the heartfelt case that to understand the Covid impact on the NHS you have to go *beyond* data - "there is more to know than you can count".
His testimony was *so important* /END
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