When Jane Hill fell into her home in June, she needed urgent medical attention. She had major concerns about going to Tameside, but the ambulance that took her home gave her no choice.
Looking back, her daughter Tracy bitterly regrets that she got in.
“I’m not going to send a dog over there, which is real. I mean, my mom always said to me, ‘If I go to Tamside, my love, I’m not out alive. “And you know what, she was right.”
In what now appears to be a grave mistake, Ms. Hill, 79, has been placed in ward 42 with several coronavirus patients.
Five days later, the hospital called, saying that they were worried that the grandmother would contract the disease herself.
Tracy recalls, “They said,“ We should bring her home because she is in a ward with Covid patients… We are worried that she will catch him. ”This was the first time she knew about her mother while she was in a mixed ward. Jen did not get tested before returning home to her husband. Bill, 82 years old.
Unfortunately, shortly after he got home, Jean fell again and was re-accepted. This time it turned out to be infected with the Covid-19 virus.
Tracy believes her mother contracted the disease in hospital and then took it to her father during her short visit home.
Bell survived, but Jean was less fortunate. After about a week in the emergency orthopedic unit, she was put on an “end-of-life pathway” and died the following week.
Her daughter feels the hospital is to blame. “People are dying needlessly,” she said.
Unfortunately, this appears not to be a single incident.
The Telegraph spoke to more than 20 people who had been treated at Tameside Hospital, or whose relatives had been admitted there, and had concerns about the way the hospital had responded during the pandemic.
An image has emerged of an institution struggling to meet NHS guidelines designed to stop the virus from spreading.
Tameside, near Greater Manchester, has recorded dozens of patients who contracted the deadly virus after receiving treatment there. Analysis by the Telegraph found that among those treated for Covid-19 at the Trust, about 38 percent died.
Population demographics could be responsible for some of these deaths – Thamside is 34th out of the 326 most disadvantaged local authorities, and has the highest rate of premature death from heart disease in England – both of which are a risk factor in the epidemic.
Even with these things in mind, NHS England figures show that 100 of Tameside-treated patients for Covid-19 fell ill there – more than a fifth of the total number of Covid-19 patients.
In one deadly week in September, 18 hospital patients contracted the virus in the hospital, seven of them in one day.
