David Parrott is just 19 years old and sits alone with an oxygen mask that helps his lungs with COVID to breathe.
Sitting alone in Bay 5 gives him too much time to think. And his young head is full of anxious thoughts about how his health could be permanently damaged.
“I’m only 19 – it shows you that anyone can get it. You can see by how bad I am at being on oxygen,” the drama student tells me.
David is worried about his future and the damage COVID-19 has done to his body
“I’ve been on oxygen since I’ve been here. I haven’t really had any health condition and suddenly I can be like this in bed, in the hospital taken down, unable to do anything because of this virus. It’s horrible. “
His voice is infamous. Almost self-questioning. I see his eyes running side by side. He asks himself: “How did I end up here?”
David tells me that he looked at all the rules. But that is what worries him in the future. Fada COVID there is something to fear.
“It’s going around in my head that this could damage my lungs, this could stop me from doing stuff I want to do.”
David is a patient in a highly dependent COVID unit at the Royal Surrey County Hospital. It is a purpose-built ward last year after the height of the spring wave. It is this forward thinking that has saved the hospital from overcoming this wave.
Dr de Vos says many patients feel guilty about getting COVID-19
“It’s non-stop, the entries come quickly,” Dr John de Vos tells me. He was a cancer doctor who is now the COVID-19 chief consultant in the hospital.
He says he is treating more and more patients like David.
“They’re sicker now, sicker than the first wave. Sick and younger. And when you’re sick you’re going to be in the hospital for a longer period of time and then you can’t always predict what the way things go. see some difficult situations. “
Dr John de Vos was a cancer doctor who was now the chief COVID-19 consultant at Royal Surrey
The hospital is seeing a relentless increase in admissions, including those infected at Christmas time. Dr. de Vos says some of these patients are sick with the virus and sick with guilt.
“We see patients who had gatherings over Christmas and the New Year, which was allowed, but we are now seeing the aftermath and it takes a lot of guilt and emotion with it. . “
Elaine Walsh says there is a light at the end of the tunnel – staff can’t see it yet
I have been in this ward for 90 minutes. During that time there are three patient transfers to other parts of the hospital, one patient is transferred to ICU and two other patients are admitted. It’s like this all the time, says Elaine Walsh, head sister of the Guildford COVID-19 ward.
“Since we opened we have been very busy,” she said. “One outpatient and one outpatient again. It is always inside and out.
“For us we see it almost as we are in a tunnel. We know there is light there but we can’t see it yet.”