Heroes On Front Line Let Down

Not enough protective equipment for virus medics

- Pippa Crerar, Nick Sommerlad, Martin Fricker And Amy-clare Martin

A hospital consultant has become the first frontline NHS worker to die from coronavirus as fears mount that countless lives are being put a risk by a lack of testing and protective kit.

NHS England said yesterday that senior doctor Amged El-Hawrani, 55, died at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester after testing positive for Covid-19.

It comes as Boris Johnson wrote to every household in the country to warn that “things will get worse before they get better”.

The death toll from the outbreak rose 209 to 1,228 yesterday.

Ear, nose and throat specialist Dr El-Harwani, who died on Saturday, is understood to have contracted the virus several weeks ago.

In an emotional tribute his relatives called him “the rock of our family” who put everybody else first.

NHS England described Dr El-Hawrani as the first practising hospital doctor to die of the virus.

Dr Adil El Tayar, an organ transplant surgeon, 63, died in a London hospital last week after volunteering at an A&E department in the West Midlands. An Essex GP, Dr Habib Zaidi, 76, died in intensive care at Southend Hospital last week after, according to his doctor daughter, “textbook symptoms” of the virus.

As worrying footage of a nurse working in a coronavirus ward wearing only basic protection was passed to the Mirror, the Doctors’ Association UK said it was “deeply saddened” by Dr El-Hawrani’s death.

And it urged the Government to make a priority of “protecting the lives of the life-savers”.