"We love you NHS": UK health service gears up for virus peak

Dr. Nishant Joshi is on front line of coronavirus pandemic — and he's angry. emergency medicine specialist says he risks his life every time he walks into a British hospital because doctors and nurses haven't been equipped with personal protection equipment y need to prevent m from being infected with COVID-19.

But he’s t just a doctor: he’s a 31-year-old husband expecting his first child.

“Some of my colleagues have been taking out life insurance in last few weeks,’’ Joshi told Associated Press. “ government has to take square responsibility for this, because you should never be putting your health care workers in a situation where we are scared for our lives."

Britain's National Health Service, cornerstone of nation's post-war welfare state, will be stretched to breaking point in coming weeks as hospitals treat an expected

Created in 1948, NHS is a revered institution that promises free medical care to everyone in U.K.

Yet with years of austerity cuts and rising demand alrey straining NHS resources, health service is facing biggest test in its 72-year history. After delays that have been sharply criticized, Conservative government is racing to ensure that hospitals and clinics across country have staffing and equipment y need to cope with coronavirus onslaught.

Authorities have urged retired doctors and nurses to return to work — and some 20,000 have complied. Routine surgeries are being canceled so resources can be focused on COVID-19. government is building several makeshift hospitals as it scrambles to find thousands of ditional ventilators and build up stocks of masks, gloves and or protective equipment.

But Britain, like or countries around world, is relying on one n-medical tactic to stretch NHS resources: emergency rules that require most people to stay indoors except to buy groceries, exercise or work in essential industries. Public health officials hope this social distancing will slow rate of infections, delaying flood of cases so peak of wave is lower and hits after flu season. Some 750,000 volunteers have stepped forward to help bring food and medicine to people who cant leave ir homes.

Even so, mood in Britain is somber.

“It's important for me to level with you — we kw things will get worse before y get better,’’ Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a letter sent to 30 million households. “But we are making right preparations, and more we all follow rules, fewer lives will be lost and sooner life can return to rmal.’’

In meantime, British military has mobilized. Soldiers are delivering millions of face masks to hospitals and helping to build makeshift medical facilities, including one at London's massive ExCel convention center that can treat as many as 4,000 patients.

Ventilators are an especially pressing need because COVID-19 can cause severe dam to lungs in most serious cases. Industries in Britain are scrambling to quickly design and build lung machines; even veterinary ventilators are being re-purposed for human patients.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said 170 million masks, 42.8 million gloves, 13.7 million aprons, 182,000 gowns, 10 million items of cleaning equipment and 2.3 million eye protectors were being delivered to front-line staff.

Celebrities are also pitching in. Actor James McAvoy donated 275,000 pounds ($341,000) to a campaign to provide protective equipment for NHS staff.

NHS Professionals, which provides a pool of medical staff who can be deployed wherever re is a need, is working overtime to get skilled health-care workers to right places.

This includes registering retired doctors and nurses so y can return to work — a process that w takes as little as 24 hours — and helping m get training to perform tasks y've never done before, like doctors doing work of intensive care nurses, said Juliette Cosgrove, former chief nurse of job bank, who is w herself working at a front-line hospital.

“We’re asking people to step into situations which y've never stepped into before," she said.

ditional resources are helping NHS plug gaps in a system that struggles to meet demand every winter flu season.

In vember, all of England's 118 major accident and emergency units failed to meet a government target that 95% of patients be seen within four hours. Only 81% of patients received treatment within that target window, worst performance since metric was introduced in 2004.

NHS also missed its targets for starting treatment of cancer patients and for waiting times for n-emergency procedures.

NHS said it was “widely recognized that health care system in world could cope if this virus really took hold, and NHS services are going to come under pressure.’’

editor of a respected British medical journal has put blame on Conservative government, accusing it in a scathing editorial of doing too little, too late, to expand virus testing capacity, distribute protective gear and set up training programs and guidelines for protecting NHS staff.

“Patients will die unnecessarily. NHS staff will die unnecessarily,’’ Dr. Richard Horton wrote in a commentary on Lancet website. “It is, indeed, as one health worker wrote last week, `a national scandal.' gravity of that scandal has yet to be understood.’’

That has left doctors and nurses on front lines shaken as y look at devastation alrey taking place among

“I never thought in my wildest dreams that I wouldn’t be sure of a surgical mask in this country," Joshi said. "I never thought in my wildest dreams that we would be feeling consistently unsafe as doctors.’’

“In Italy, y said we didn't take care of our doctors first — w y're dropping like flies. Just do what you can to protect your health-care staff because we are good when we're lying on bed next to our patients.’’

Ordinary Britons kw in ir gut what ir beloved NHS staff is facing.

In what is becoming a weekly ritual, hundreds of thousands of people open ir front doors and windows at night, clapping hands, banging pots and cheering for brave medical workers battling virus. Children have been drawing “Thank You NHS” cards. display of emotion from a stiff-upper-lip country has brought many to tears.

Doctors like Joshi appreciate applause and volunteers who show up with cake, pizzas and or acts of kindness. But that doesn’t ease his worries.

“I've taken out life insurance as well," he said.