BRAVE hospital staff have “risen valiantly to the cause” in response to the coronavirus pandemic, but fears of a second wave of cases remains a “genuine concern” for health chiefs.
Rowan Pritchard Jones, medical director at St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, revealed the number of people needing hospital treatment locally for COVID-19 has fallen by half, but he has warned the public it “must not rest on our laurels”.
At the time of writing, the trust, which runs Whiston, St Helens and Newton hospitals, had registered 163 coronavirus-related deaths.
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At least 51 deaths have been linked to COVID-19 in the borough’s social care sector.
Coronavirus is also known to have been involved in the deaths of four people in St Helens who died at home, according to the Office for National Statistics.
That brings the death toll across hospitals covering St Helens and Knowsley and the care sector to at least 218.
While it is unclear just how close the care sector is to peaking, hospital chiefs are now confident they have weathered the storm.
Mr Pritchard Jones said: “Whilst it’s been a really challenging time, the staff have risen valiantly to the cause to put things in place at incredible speed to care for some of the sickest patients we’ve ever had in the hospital.
“We’ve had over 200 plus patients at a time in the building, very, very poorly with this.
“We’re closer to half of that now, we’re nearer about a 100-odd patients that are with us now and an intensive care unit that has been incredibly stretched, they’ve had to almost double in size, that is managing at a most difficult time.”
One of the unintended consequences of the current crisis has been a fall in people seeking urgent care.
Mr Pritchard Jones said the trust has seen a “big drop” in referrals of possible cancer diagnoses because people are heeding the advice of the government to stay at home.
Mr Pritchard Jones said: “There will be patients at home with symptoms who ordinarily would have taken them to the GP or may even have prompted them to go to a walk-in centre or an A&E and they haven’t.
“The concern is that people may yet present in a worse state that they might have ordinarily done. And we are open and ready to see all these patients.”
While the hospital will now seek to reorganise its operation after being reassembled to tackle the coronavirus crisis, health chiefs wait anxiously on the government’s next steps.
“We’re genuinely concerned,” Mr Pritchard Jones said.
“The expectation is, depending on how the government decides to take down the some of the lockdown measures, we may yet see another surge in cases.
“We must not rest on our laurels on this.”
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