By Harry Hutchinson, Labour Party Northern Ireland
PPE equipment, ventilators and testers are needed immediately in hospitals throughout Britain and Northern Ireland to fight the Covid-19 virus. Hospitals are swamped with infected patients and health workers are being exposed to the virus due to lack of protective equipment and there is a shortage of ventilators.
The British government’s and Stormont’s strategy is to produce much of these vital products from scratch by ordering companies like Dyson, Airbus and GKN to manufacture these products. Some can be produced in a short period, like PPE equipment. However, ventilators will take months to make. These companies which have been given the orders to produce such quality equipment have no experience in manufacturing such equipment and need a period of testing before being used in the NHS.
Community care workers
Britain had only 10,000 ventilators and estimated usage could exceed between 60 to 100 thousand a week by late May. Northern Ireland needs will probably run into the thousands from the paltry 179 in use.
The Belfast Telegraph reported today that a key scientist who has been advising the Government, Professor Neil Ferguson, had suggested that many more ventilators would be needed than the 8000 apparently ordered by the government. “He predicted that intensive care demand would peak “in approximately two to three weeks and then decline thereafter” if the current lockdown measures work as expected”.
“There was also criticism of Boris Johnson”, The Telegraph reported, “for not taking part in an EU scheme to boost the number of ventilators, with allegations that Brexit ideology was being placed above demand for the essential equipment.” Boris Johnson’s spokesman, when asked why the UK was not utilising the scheme, according to the paper replied, “Well, we are no longer members of the EU.”
On Personal Protective equipment, only part of the stockpile of PPE equipment is being released to hospitals and care homes in Northern Ireland, despite nurses having to share masks. Community care workers have to visit homes with only gloves and aprons. Both the British government and Stormont have ignored the WHO advice to test the public for the virus, despite this being a proven method to contain the virus in China, Singapore and South Korea. Stockpiles of the testing equipment is available in Northern Ireland.
China has sent equipment to Africa
China has sent a lot of this type of vital equipment to over 20 countries in Africa, Asia and also to Europe. Yet Britain and Stormont refuse to import these essential products, or make use of skilled doctors from abroad. Instead, governments here are intent to produce their own products, which has caused weeks of delay and no guarantee when such products will be make available to the NHS.
These products are needed immediately for health workers to fight the coronavirus. This market-orientated approach will cause delay and unnecessary deaths to patients and healthcare personnel. The approach from the East is proving successful in directly fighting Covid-19, while the West is more interested in a corporate approach and undermining East-West relations.
March 26, 2020
