Staff at an NHS hospital where British passengers from the cruise ship hit by an outbreak of hantavirus are being isolated have claimed priority is being given to those patients while their A&E is 'drowning'. A specialist facility at Arrowe Park in the Wirral, Merseyside is being used to isolate British nationals who were on board the MV Hondius, a cross-Atlantic cruise ship which saw all passengers evacuated following an outbreak of the deadly rat-borne illness. But hospital bosses have disputed the claims made by staff.
Staff Concerns Over Resource Allocation
In total, 31 people were transferred via charter flights to Manchester Airport and brought to the Frontis building, a multi-storey facility previously used to quarantine British citizens returning from Wuhan at the start of the Covid pandemic. None of them have showed symptoms or tested positive for hantavirus, with over a dozen passengers having already left the hospital after testing negative via PCR blood tests and throat swabs. They will be allowed to complete the voluntary 45-day isolation period at home or in 'other suitable accommodation'.
But exhausted staff at the hospital claim that they have been 'drowning' under pressure as attention and resources are diverted on the quarantine patients, compounding issues at an already strained A&E department. One long-serving emergency department worker told the Liverpool Echo: 'We are still coming in every day to so many patients lining the corridor. Last week we had that many on the corridors that they were blocking all the doors and we had to hold people in the back of ambulances because we physically ran out of space. At one point we had 95 patients in the waiting room. They were all on trolleys around the corridors all the way round the back of the department. It's just horrendous.'
They added: 'This is in the summer. This is supposed to be our quiet season. All the escalation beds are supposed to be closing now because we don't use them once we hit spring. But we've just got nowhere to put anybody. It's just ridiculous. It's so dangerous.'
Trust Response and Staff Resentment
The Wirral University Teaching Hospital Trust, which runs Arrowe Park, said that while A&E remains busy, there have been 'significant improvements in four hour and 12 hour performance.' Another staff member said resentment had grown after several hospital staff were reportedly given just 24 hours to vacate an accommodation block, which is now being used for isolating hantavirus patients. A staff member said: 'One person I know has lived there for years. That's their home and they suddenly had to move all their stuff out. They were in the middle of a shift at the time.'
Another said: 'We were on duty that day when they all arrived. We had matrons, managers that are coming in on a Sunday, all running round getting stuff to meet and greet our guests. Meanwhile we've got patients on the back of our corridor that have got no nurses and no care. We're holding patients in the back of ambulances, we're asking the trust to send us staff because we're drowning. 100% they are being prioritised. There are matrons working over there. Why aren't they working in our department? Why aren't they working on our wards and helping our sick patients? We've got patients that are coming to harm every day because we are so stretched.'
NHS Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust insists the hantavirus isolation project is a nationally-led response, and says there has been no prioritisation as all hospital services have continued to run as normal. They added that all staffing reviews and safety huddles are and were completed every day, while the average ambulance handover time remains positive and has been less than an hour throughout the month of May. A spokesperson told local media: 'We do not recognise the claims made. The welfare of our staff is a high priority for the Trust. Throughout our support to the national hantavirus response, the Executive Team held daily briefings face-to-face and online so that staff could raise any concerns, ask any questions and share feedback which was overwhelmingly positive.'
'We continue to encourage our staff to raise concerns through the established internal channels so that they can be addressed appropriately. We would also take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to our staff, partners and the general public in support of the response.'
