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Staff at Royal Free London battle Covid-19. With beds in the hospital rapidly filling with Covid-positive patients, doctors are redeployed and ICU doubles its capacity.

Filmed inside the NHS from the first day of the lockdown - while we stayed at home, staff on the frontline went to work. Award-winning Hospital follows the human stories behind the headlines, of staff and patients alike, as they grapple with the extraordinary challenge of Covid-19, with access to the Royal Free London, a world leader in the treatment of infectious diseases.

With beds in the hospital rapidly filling with Covid-positive patients, doctors are redeployed and ICU doubles its capacity.

The Royal Free Hospital’s emergency department is inundated with patients displaying coronavirus symptoms. Among them is 88-year-old Peter, who is struggling for breath. He is quickly put on oxygen and moved to what was the coronary care unit but has now become a ward for Covid-positive patients. Consultant Tim Lockie is very worried about Peter’s condition and initiates a difficult conversation with him and his family about his prognosis.

Five floors down, in the maternity unit, 22-year-old Sabina is also Covid-positive and 36 weeks pregnant. Her oxygen saturation levels are dangerously low, so her obstetrician Maggie Blott decides she needs an emergency caesarean. It is the first C-section of a Covid-positive patient that staff at the trust have done. All the staff must wear full PPE (a first) to prevent the spread of infection.

And in the intensive care unit, NHS nurse Nancy is on a ventilator, fighting for her life. She needs an emergency operation to treat the UK’s first case of Covid-related laryngitis, something the hospital hasn’t seen before.

59 minutes

Last on

Wed 20 May 2020 02:00

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Credits

Role Contributor
Executive Producer Jackie Waldock
Executive Producer Lorraine Charker-Phillips
Executive Producer Simon Dickson
Production Company Label1 Productions

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