Hospital boss' emotional plea after 117 coronavirus deaths since Christmas in Northamptonshire

The boss of one of Northamptonshire's two main hospitals issued an emotional plea after NHS England revealed 75 coronavirus deaths in the county already during 2021.

Today's official bulletin added 19 to the sobering toll — 11 at Northampton General Hospital and eight at Kettering General — between January 8 and January 12.

It followed yesterday's shock news that the two acute NHS trusts were now dealing with 401 Covid-positive patients occupying 36 per cent of the 1,100 beds.

KGH chief executive, Eileen Doyle, said: "If you're a non-believer of Covid — although I'm not sure how anyone can be — it's really important that we all have a responsibility to try and help the NHS maintain that capacity for those who need it.

"Your mum, dad, your nan, might have a stroke, might have a heart attack.

"All of these dreadful things happen and we have to maintain enough capacity in every acute hospital to be able to deal with those life-threatening emergencies.

"For those who perhaps think: 'I've got away this far, I'm not going to get Covid, I'll be fine, I'll have the vaccine in a little while', you may not get Covid, but you may spin off the road."

A lag in reporting and registering deaths means that more fatalities from the same period are still to be confirmed in the next few days.

Recent sharp rises in deaths connected to the virus mirrors spikes in the number of positive tests in the county between Christmas and New Year with weekly totals well over 5,000.

Staff at NGH have now seen 45 Covid patients die since January 1 with another 30 at Kettering.

We revealed earlier this week how gruelling 12-hour shifts in full PPE is taking its toll on nursing staff and doctors in hospital intensive care units.

Director of Public Health, Lucy Wightman, added: "Our hospitals are seeing the highest pressure they've seen.

"The number of Covid patients requiring treatment has an impact on the number of staff available to support everybody else who needs critical and emergency care.

"GP practices are struggling to reach all the 'business as usual' patients while our ambulance service is also stretched to capacity and having trouble off-loading patients at hospitals because they are so busy.

"We're finding we can't get numbers through A&E which means people attending for reasons other than Covid — a slip, trip or fall, a minor road accident, or chest pains for example — we've got pressure on those services."

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