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UK: More than 40,600 people contracted COVID while in hospital

WION Web Team
London, United KingdomUpdated: Mar 26, 2021, 05:30 PM IST
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Photograph:(Reuters)

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These figures have come as a shock at a time when the UK is hoping to bring relaxations in the coronavirus lockdown measures

In England, more than 40,600 people have been infected with the deadly coronavirus while being treated at hospitals for other reasons.

The recent figures have raised concerns about NHS' inability to protect the patients. The figures revealed that at least a fifth of all patients in one in five hospitals got infected by the deadly coronavirus, while they were in the hospital for some other reason.

"These heartbreaking figures show how patients and NHS staff have been abysmally let down by the failure to suppress the virus ahead of and during the second wave," said Layla Moran MP, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus.

The survey reveals that, as a whole, 15 per cent (one in seven) of all patients, who were treated for the deadly coronavirus, between August 01, 2020, and March 21, had contracted the virus while in the hospital.

Experts believe that many of these infections were caused by the lack of beds and many more limitations posed by the condition of hospitals, including sanitation and ventilation. 

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"It is simply staggering that one in seven hospital patients who developed Covid-19 caught the virus while being treated for another illness. This analysis also reveals deeply alarming regional disparities, with rates of hospital-acquired Covid in the north-west almost twice those in London," said Moran.

These figures have come as a shock at a time when the UK is hoping to bring relaxations in the coronavirus lockdown measures — which has been extended several times, bringing in frustration in citizens.

"Due to years of systemic understaffing and a cost-cutting approach to new hospital design we have far fewer beds available than our European counterparts, which has made it harder to separate out cases and led to an increase in the chances of hospital-acquired infection. Tragically, people will have caught Covid and inevitably died as a result of this shortsightedness," Dr Claudia Paoloni, the president of the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association was quoted by Guardian.