Vivid details of the care being given in London’s Nightingale hospital were revealed today by two religious clerics working with coronavirus patients and their families.
Imam Yunus Dudhwala and Father James MacKay told the Standard how, clad in protective suits, they were praying at besides, either on behalf of absent family or with the one permitted relative, minutes before patients died.
Their testimonies offer some of the first insights into what is happening inside the converted ExCeL conference centre in Docklands. The vision for the Nightingale was a capacity of up to 4,000 beds but it is thought that only one 42-bed ward is open.
Health chiefs say the Nightingale’s capacity will be crucial in allowing London hospitals to return to normal — restarting planned surgery and coping with a likely rise in A&E admissions — when the lockdown eases.
Mr Dudhwala, who is head of chaplaincy for Barts Health NHS Trust, has supported 20 patients in the last two days and had been able to help arrange the burial of a Muslim patient three-and-a-half hours after death. Father James, the Roman Catholic parish priest for the Royal Docks, told how he had administered the last rites to patients — and seen first-hand the humanity of the healthcare staff and “just how devastating this illness can be”.
The NHS refuses to disclose full details of how many patients have been treated, recovered or died at the Nightingale, while the Department of Health yesterday denied reports that patients were being turned away because of a shortage of nurses.
The clerics are part of a multi-faith team offering support to patients — the “majority” of whom were said to be sedated and on ventilators — and the Nightingale’s staff.
Last week, while Mr Dudhwala was in coronavirus isolation, he helped facilitate calls between the hospital and six families. Tablet devices are used for video calls, enabling relatives to see their family member in intensive care.
“On each call we would have about five households joining in,” he said. “My most intense call was on Saturday. The wife was at home, the children were at home, the grandchildren were at home, one daughter was with the dying father. That lasted around 50 minutes.
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“I cannot explain or articulate how emotional that call was. We mustn’t forget what this pandemic does to families and how we can make a traumatic situation the best experience in the circumstances. That is what we are trying to achieve.
“I think he died within half an hour of the call. It was a Muslim family and they wanted their loved one to be buried as soon as possible, per tradition. [Newham council] has been amazing and we were able to facilitate a funeral within three-and-a-half hours of the death. That really comforted the family.” He said the “intensity” of the ward, which can take 42 patients, and the “camaraderie” between staff were extraordinary. “In one bed I’m seeing a patient, their hair being stroked and their hand being held. On another bed I’m seeing 10 doctors and nurses looking after one patient.
“Though it’s intense, people are not losing their humanity. They realise that [the patient’s] loved ones are not able to come so they ‘become’ the family.” Father James initially feared they would not be able to get close to dying patients.
“To our delight, access to bedsides to administer the sacraments, or the last rites as we call them, has been possible,” he said. “A priest who was on shift yesterday got called in at 4.30am to accompany the wife of a patient who was end-of-life. He was there when the machine was turned off. He [the priest] called it the most blessed day of his life.
“There is an emotional and spiritual intensity to being on a ward I have never experienced. Normally you walk through a ward and patients are in various conditions — end of life or chatting to their family members.
“Here they’re all unconscious. You get a first-hand experience of just how devastating this illness can be.” But there is also hope — on Sunday he witnessed one recovering patient being brought off a ventilator. His eyes were so wide open it was as if he was a baby hearing music for the first time,” Father James said.
“There was something really joyous in witnessing someone on the road to recovery.” The son of one patient asked him to baptise his father. “It ended up being the simplest and most beautiful baptism I’ve ever celebrated. I had to get sterilised water on the ward in a little capsule and put three droplets on the head as I said the words of baptism. I walked away from there thinking: ‘I have just made a new Christian.’ I was moved almost to tears. Hope is everything at the moment. We need to hold on to the belief that better times are ahead.”