New UK virus hospital turned away patients over staff shortage: report

London’s temporary hospital set up to deal with coronavirus had to turn 30 patients away due to “staffing issues,” The Guardian reports, but the government insists the claims are “misleading.”

A planned transfer of seriously ill patients to the 4,000-bed Nightingale Hospital in east London was “canceled due to staffing issues,” according to NHS documents seen by the newspaper.

Staff at the facility, which has treated 41 patients since opening earlier this month, tell the paper that they couldn’t get enough critical care nurses based in other hospitals to work there.

But the government calls the claims “misleading,” saying the hospital was only intended as an emergency overflow if other facilities in the capital became overwhelmed.

“It is misleading to suggest coronavirus patients are being turned away from NHS Nightingale due to a shortage of staff,” says the health department.

“NHS Nightingale has been set up to treat patients if the NHS was overwhelmed but thanks to the great work of selfless NHS staff, there is spare capacity in existing London hospitals to treat all coronavirus patients there instead.”

— AFP