Shropshire Star comment: True coronavirus death toll will be much higher
When the dust finally settles, and the grim totals are totted up, it is quite possible coronavirus is implicated in many more deaths than those caused directly by the disease itself.
It may be the case that our response to try to prevent the pandemic sweeping through the country unabated has already led to some people dying of other things, when in the normal course of events they would have expected to have survived.
We have seen people being more reluctant to go to A&E or their own doctor, for a variety of reasons, including the feeling that they don’t want to add to the workload at a difficult time. And cancer patients have seen treatment delayed, and that delay is naturally a great worry.
The number of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for routine treatment at hospitals across our region has soared to a record high in June.
According to the King’s Fund, which is a think tank, the body blow inflicted to NHS services by Covid-19 means patients could face long waits for months or even years to come. Things could get even worse if there is a renewed surge of coronavirus during the winter, an eventuality which is rightly feared.
From a medical standpoint, it is reasonable to suppose delays in treatment have consequences, even if the consequence is continued anxiety for the patient that they have not been dealt with, and have to live with whatever it is the treatment is seeking to address for longer than necessary.
From the organisational and administrative standpoint, there are consequences too, as faced with the biggest crisis in its history the NHS, having ridden out the first wave of the pandemic successfully, is creaking under the strain. Nightingale hospitals, which are starting to take outpatients, have dramatically increased capacity within the system, but that is not going to be a cure for the current ills if there are not enough medical boots on the ground to cope.
The NHS is not there just for coronavirus. It’s there for everything. The vast majority of NHS ‘customers’ are not Covid patients. One reason getting on top of coronavirus is so important is that there are so many other battles to be fought.
