Woman with incurable lung disease put in ward with Covid patients: ‘I feel like I’m being left to die’

The patient, who did not want to be named, sobbed as she described her terror at the thought of returning to hospital to allow doctors to continue to investigate her symptoms.

"I feel like I’m just being left to die,” she said.

"I have COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and asthma and the only time I’ve left the house in the last 19 months has been to go to hospital appointments and to pick up medication.

"I know if I get Covid, it would kill me, I just wouldn’t survive it.”

The woman said she rang an ambulance after experiencing significant breathlessness on the night of September 24.

Paramedics arrived at her home in Newtownards at 4.45am and took her to the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald. She said: "I started to experience stomach pains that went up to my chest, it felt like I was having a heart attack.

"I was there until Sunday night and I didn’t get offered a cup of tea or food the whole time I was there.”

Several days later, she was walking through the ward when she noticed a number of nurses dressed in enhanced personal protective equipment.

"I asked them had Covid patients just been admitted and they said there had,” she continued.

"I was so upset, I couldn’t stay there so I rang my husband and asked him to come and get me. I left the hospital at about midnight.

"The ward where I was is all side rooms but that doesn’t stop Covid spreading, the staff are going from room to room to room, the tea trolley is going from room to room to room.

"I’ve spent so long shielding away, I haven’t even gone to work because of the risk, and I want to know why they think it’s safe to put patients with Covid in the same ward as patients who don’t have the virus?”

She said she is now seeking a meeting with Robin Swann to raise her concerns. "I want the health minister to know what is happening,” she said.

"It’s all very well him turning up at a hospital for a visit and everything is going great, he needs to go there unannounced and see what’s really happening. This isn’t the first time I have been put in a ward with Covid patients, it’s just not acceptable.”

Earlier this week, it emerged two wards at the Ulster Hospital had been closed due to Covid-19 outbreaks. Additional cleaning and infection control measures have been put in place by the hospital to tackle the outbreak.

Last night, a spokeswoman from the South Eastern Trust said transmission of the virus “remains high” across the community and there has been a “sustained increase in cases” across hospitals.

She continued: “Our inpatient ward block where the patient was being cared for has a 100% single room facility.

"Throughout this pandemic our staff have done, and continue to maintain the highest standards of excellence in relation to infection prevention and control measures.

"We do not have dedicated Covid-19 wards, we have wards where nursing, medical and allied health professions staff are experts in managing people in hospital sick with Covid-19.

"It is vitally important to stress that, with appropriate PPE precautions, there is no increased risk to those in these wards, as evidenced by the low rate of those who acquire Covid-19 when in hospital, especially within our inpatient ward block which has single room occupancy.”  

The Department of Health has been contacted for comment.