Coronavirus doctor, 53, who warned Boris Johnson about need for ‘urgent’ PPE dies
A DOCTOR who warned Boris Johnson about need for 'urgent' PPE in the fight against coronavirus has died.
Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, 53, died after battling the bug for 15 days in hospital.
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A post on Twitter said the doctor was a senior consultant in the Urology department at Romford Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
It added that he and his wife only recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary.
Dr Chowdhury had last month written to the PM, appealing for urgent action on personal protective equipment for "each and every" NHS worker in the UK.
He added healthcare workers have a "human right like others to live in this world disease-free with our family and children".
PPE CRISIS
The Government has been under constant pressure to ensure that PPE is dished out to frontline NHS workers.
A senior doctor said that medics felt like "cannon fodder" and "lambs to the slaughter" as they deal with covid-19 patients in wards.
While doctors and nurses have been snapped wearing rubbish bags around the bodies and mouths as makeshift PPE.
Other medics are said to have bought scrubs on Amazon or had friends knit them protective kit.
NHS HEROES
Dr Chowdhury's death is the latest in a list of NHS heroes of have sadly died fighting the Covid-19 outbreak.
Yesterday it was revealed Donald Suelto, who worked at Hammersmith Hospital in west London, died after going into self-isolation with coronavirus symptoms.
Sixteen other NHS medics have died from coronavirus since the outbreak began.
Tributes have flooded in for Rebecca Mack, 29, after she became the latest medic to be killed by the deadly virus.
Rebecca, of Morpeth, Northumberland, worked at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary before becoming a 111 medic.
Her heartbroken mum Marion, 59, said: "It's just horrendous. We can't even go to see her to say goodbye.
"She was an absolutely wonderful daughter. We couldn't have wished for a nicer daughter. She was so caring.
"She was just the light of our lives. I can't even begin to imagine life without her."
Her daughter, Melissa Ong, described her mother as a "wonderful woman" who was "generous to everyone else before herself".
On Tuesday we reported how Dr Anton Sebastianpillai, died aged 75 on Saturday at Kingston Hospital having been cared for in the hospital's intensive care unit.
The consultant geriatrician, who qualified as a doctor in Sri Lanka in 1967, finished his last shift on March 20.
His death came after heart surgeon and dad-of-two Jitendra Rathod, who worked at the University Hospital of Wales, died on Monday morning in Cardiff after testing positive for Covid-19.
The dad-of-two was described as an "incredibly dedicated surgeon" who cared deeply for his patients and was highly regarded in the medical profession in Wales.
Elsewhere, a British Pakistani GP based in East London died in hospital on Monday after it is believed he developed coronavirus symptoms.
According to The News International, a newspaper in Pakistan, Dr Syed Haider had been receiving treatment at Queen's Hospital in Romford where he passed away.
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On Sunday, the first serving NHS midwife in England to die after testing positive for the virus was confirmed when Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex, announced the death of Lynsay Coventry, 54.
Two nurses - both young mothers - five doctors and two healthcare assistants have also contracted coronavirus and died since the start of the outbreak.
Nurse Areema Nasreen, 36, died just after midnight on April 2 in intensive care at Walsall Manor Hospital in the West Midlands - the hospital where she had worked for 16 years.
Aimee O'Rourke, 39, also died at the hospital she worked at - the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent, on Thursday.
'HOLDING THEIR BREATH'
Earlier this week, Dr Rinesh Parmar, of the Doctors' Association, said there are still major issues surrounding the lack of PPE.
told the Sophy Ridge On Sunday show that NHS staff are having to reuse eye masks and added that some nurses doing high-risk procedures are "having to hold their breath".
Dr Parmar added that a survey conducted by his organisation has found that almost half of doctors say they have no eye protection at all.
He added: "Nurses are doing some of these high risk procedures because they're unsure whether the masks they've been provided with is going to offer them adequate protection."
He said: "Sadly doctors have been forced to take matters into their own hands."
Asked on whether the NHS would cope, he said: "We've gone into this pandemic in a position of relative weakness."
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Dr Parmar said that along with the safety of patients, the safety of the workforce "is our paramount concern".
He said: "Given the severe lack of PPE getting through, we are all very concerned about potentially losing more colleagues.
Dr Parmar said it was "sad to hear" of those who had already been lost "in the line of duty", adding "none of us wants to hear further stories of frontline staff losing their lives".
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