Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Wade's World: John Wright, Author of "The Coronavirus Doctor's Diary"
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Wade's World: John Wright, Author of "The Coronavirus Doctor's Diary"
"Medical doctor and epidemiologist John Wright recorded the dramatic life and death events as his hospital went into battle against Covid.
His 350-page diary tells how Bradford Royal Infirmary tore up the usual disinfection protocols and sterilised respirators with gin donated from distilleries and of how public health was hampered by the fake news that non-white patients would be left to die.
There are heart-wrenching accounts. On one occasion staff nurse Sophie Bryant-Miles asked the hospital chaplain to perform a marriage ceremony wearing full PPE knowing that the groom had only hours to live. The patient struggled to say the words because of his breathing, the bride because of tears.
Another critically ill patient – seven-month pregnant university graduate Mehpara Naqvi – bravely put her baby’s life first, demanding a C-section. “I just don’t think I am going to make it so I think you should save my baby.” She survived against the odds but only found out she was a mother seven days later after being brought out of a coma.
Harrowing rationing decisions had to be made in the early days in Bradford as elsewhere. John Wright noted: “We are used to people dying in hospital but we are not used to saying ‘you are going to die because I can’t give this ventilator because someone needs it more’.”
As a veteran of cholera, HIV and ebola epidemics in Africa, John Wright is well qualified to write about the difficulties that confronted the teams tackling the Covid pandemic in hard-pressed towns such as Bradford."
______
Support ACORN's work around the world here.
Subscribe to Social Policy, the journal of contemporary movements for social change in the workplace, the community, and the world.
Questions? Comments? E-mail [email protected].
View all episodes
By ACORN Radio"Medical doctor and epidemiologist John Wright recorded the dramatic life and death events as his hospital went into battle against Covid.
His 350-page diary tells how Bradford Royal Infirmary tore up the usual disinfection protocols and sterilised respirators with gin donated from distilleries and of how public health was hampered by the fake news that non-white patients would be left to die.
There are heart-wrenching accounts. On one occasion staff nurse Sophie Bryant-Miles asked the hospital chaplain to perform a marriage ceremony wearing full PPE knowing that the groom had only hours to live. The patient struggled to say the words because of his breathing, the bride because of tears.
Another critically ill patient – seven-month pregnant university graduate Mehpara Naqvi – bravely put her baby’s life first, demanding a C-section. “I just don’t think I am going to make it so I think you should save my baby.” She survived against the odds but only found out she was a mother seven days later after being brought out of a coma.
Harrowing rationing decisions had to be made in the early days in Bradford as elsewhere. John Wright noted: “We are used to people dying in hospital but we are not used to saying ‘you are going to die because I can’t give this ventilator because someone needs it more’.”
As a veteran of cholera, HIV and ebola epidemics in Africa, John Wright is well qualified to write about the difficulties that confronted the teams tackling the Covid pandemic in hard-pressed towns such as Bradford."
______
Support ACORN's work around the world here.
Subscribe to Social Policy, the journal of contemporary movements for social change in the workplace, the community, and the world.
Questions? Comments? E-mail [email protected].