Downing tools: Traumatised nurses refuse to return to Covid front line

Downing tools: Traumatised nurses refuse to return to Covid front line in the UK.

Hospital bosses across the UK are warning that staff are refusing to return to the COVID frontline again. NHS staff are “worn out and quite frightened.” Some staff even feel like they are being treated as “cannon fodder” rather than heroes that they truly are.

Hospital bosses have warned that traumatised and overstretched nurses will not willingly return to Covid wards. Medics believe they have not been supported psychologically throughout the pandemic.

The number of cases of the new omicron strain is expected to rise dramatically by the end of the year and the first patients with omicron have already been admitted to the hospital.

Over the next five months, between 25,000 and 75,000 deaths are expected in England alone due to the omicron variant, according to scientists from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). These figures have been predicted if new restrictions are not put in place by the government.

One hospital boss from the Midlands commented that staff do not want to return to Covid wards. They said: “It was voluntary before and now they’re saying no. We are getting people, from a critical care perspective, downing tools. So we can’t expand further.”

Speaking to the Sunday Times, a London NHS hospital boss commented: “I’ve got a lot of staff who have said they’re not going back on to Covid wards and I think you’ve got to pay attention when people are saying that.

“People are pretty worn out and quite frightened about being redeployed into Covid wards again. They don’t want to go there again.”

One doctor told a study at the University of Bath: “I feel, at times, that I am considered totally expendable and that, if I die or become ill, not only will it have been preventable with political will, I will simply be an inconvenient statistic. I’m not a Covid hero, I’m Covid cannon fodder.”

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