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Coronavirus
West Park Hospital, Darlington Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT
A MENTAL health trust has told its staff not to resuscitate its patients because it does not have the equipment to safely carry out the procedure.
The Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust issued new guidance to staff last week which advised them against CPR during a medical emergency.
An internal email sent by the trust’s medical director to staff revealed the trust did not have enhanced Personal Protective Equipment in place for resuscitation.
It said PPE including, gloves, long sleeved gowns, eye protection and FFP3 face masks were currently “not available” within the trust.
As such, staff were advised not to commence the CPR procedure even if advised to by ambulance control or life-saving equipment.
Staff were also told "not to administer rescue breaths, use a manual resuscitator or create an airway or intubate the patient under any circumstances, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic".
But a nurse at West Park Mental Health Hospital in Darlington said patients were at risk of “irreversible damage” or even death under the new guidance.
She told The Northern Echo: “We cannot resuscitate patients as we do not have the correct PPE.
“If somebody is to self-harm or has a medical emergency, without PPE, it is going to be nigh on impossible to respond to.
“It goes against everything I believe in, we have patients who might arrest for a number of reasons – we are trained in basic life support and are not going to be able to do it.”
The nurse, who wishes to remain anonymous, said colleagues had been placed in an “impossible” position when choosing between saving lives and being dismissed.
She said: “It all feels very wrong that people don’t realise how important PPE is. I can’t watch a patient die in front of me, I can’t just stand there and do nothing.”
Under guidance from the trust, staff are told to preserve life by only using limited contact, including checking for a pulse or through the use of a defibrillator.
However, the nurse said: “If we keep someone’s heart going through defibrillator without rescue breaths, their brain may be starved of oxygen and by the time the ambulance arrives, the damage will be done.
“The defibrillator tells us when to apply rescue breaths and is constantly monitoring the patient’s heart rate and we’re going to have to ignore that.
“I could never have imagined that anything like this – it’s heartbreaking.”