A long shift

It has been the end of another long shift – filling of the hospital with elderly patients has led to some desperately sad scenes. Entire rooms of patients drenched in sweat, struggling to breathe, and entirely without visitors who remain banned except for perhaps those right at the end of their lives.

Colleagues have been incredibly brave making the hard decisions in advance to avoid futile resuscitation attempts. Through sheer chance I have found myself on a ward answering a cardiac arrest call with an nonagenarian – thankfully the DNAR [Do Not Attempt Resuscitation] order is in place and I am left with my own thoughts as I confirm life extinct – another real human at the heart of the grim daily statistic of numbers killed.