Covid paramedic: 'I can't believe people deny its seriousness'

Paramedics Andrew Staley and Mick Hulme met NHS England's Sir Simon Stevens during a visit to Newcastle

A paramedic who treated the first confirmed cases of Covid in the UK says "it's quite unbelievable" that some people still deny its seriousness.

Andrew Staley and Mick Hulme were part of a team that transferred a sick Chinese student and his mother to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary.

Speaking 12 months on, Mr Staley said he hoped people could see "how hard" it had been for the NHS since then.

The pair work for North East Ambulance Service's Hazardous Area Response Team.

Mr Staley was in the back of the ambulance with the patients during their journey to the hospital, which has a specialist unit for infectious diseases.

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The family had originally been taken from their hotel in York to Castle Hill Hospital near Hull, before the decision was made to transfer them to Newcastle.

The patients arrived there during the morning of 31 January 2020.

"The hardest part of that was both patients spoke very little English, so having to communicate with them with all the PPE on was quite hard," Mr Staley said.

"It's quite unbelievable that some people still sort of deny how serious it is.

"I just wish they could have a shift on an ambulance or in a hospital somewhere to see how hard it is and how difficult it has been throughout the entire NHS for the last 12 months."

'History in the making'

On Friday they met Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, who visited the hospital.

In the past it has treated patients with suspected Ebola.

"It was history, I would say, in the making," said Mr Hulme.

"Not that we wanted to be part of this history but we are a hazardous area response team and this was a hazard and someone had to do it."

Matthias Schmid looked after the first Covid patients

Matthias Schmid, a consultant in infectious diseases, said the team working that day was "absolutely calm".

"We were calm because we were well prepared," he added.

"We had the equipment to deal with patients that potentially had a highly infectious, rare, unusual disease at that moment in time.

"We trained for that but we were not scared of anything."

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