Nurses in trash bags due to shortage of PPE ‘positive test for coronavirus’

Three nurses who used trash bags on their shifts due to a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) reportedly tested positive for coronavirus.

Just a few weeks ago, nurses had shared a photo of themselves wrapped in clinical garbage bags as they issued a request for appropriate masks, gowns, and gloves at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow.

The hospital previously declared an emergency situation after all of its critical care beds were full of patients.

More than 50% of staff working in a room have now tested positive for coronavirus, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The nurses told the publication in March that they had to “use their initiative” using the dumpsters, as they had “no other choice” due to a lack of available PPE.

A nurse said they desperately needed the right equipment and already had to treat their colleagues after contracting the virus from patients.

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She continued: ‘There are so many younger people here with ventilation, many with asthma or diabetes. They can’t stop coughing, they just cough and cough and cough and they can’t help it, but there’s little we can do other than try to help them breathe.

‘Sometimes the body just gives up and dies. We cannot save them. The worst part is that we cannot allow family members to say goodbye. “

He added that the nurses had been making “brave smiles,” but said they were all “terrified.” Many of them had not seen their families, for fear that they would transmit the virus to them.

According to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, only 5.7% of hospital doctors have been ill due to Covid-19, but a recent survey by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) suggests that this number may be closer to 14.6%.

Royal College of Nursing Executive Director and Secretary General Dame Donna Kinnair also stated that nurses are still forced to share PPE while working on the fronts of the pandemic.

In a letter to the chair of the parliamentary health committee, Jeremy Hunt, he said: “ Our safety and ability to care for patients is fundamentally compromised by the lack of adequate and correct supplies of vital personal protective equipment and the slow deployment already small scale of the Covid-19 tests.

“Our members face impossible decisions between their health or that of their family and their sense of duty.”

A spokesman for the London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Northwick Park Hospital, confirmed that a “number” of staff had tested positive for Covid-19.

They told the Telegraph: “We are giving full support to those ill staff members and wish them a speedy recovery.”