A 42-year-old nurse who nearly died from Covid-19 is suing the NHS for negligence and failure to provide her with adequate personal protective equipment (PPE).Rebecca Firth spent 21 days in intensive care and nearly a month on a ventilator following three cardiac arrests, sepsis, and multiple organ failure caused by coronavirus. When she was finally discharged from the hospital, she was so weak that she need a wheelchair to depart.Ms Firth is now seeking damages from Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust, saying she caught the virus from patients at Dewsbury and District Hospital in March 2020, near the start of the pandemic.
The mother of one accuses the trust of negligence, alleging that it failed to provide her with a safe place and safe system of work, and failed to provide adequate PPE, giving her just a paper mask instead.In documents lodged with the High Court her legal team also accuses the trust of failing to tell Ms Firth that she should have been shielding at home until it was too late.
‘Her case was an awful one’
Her legal team at Taylor & Emmet Solicitors in Sheffield stated: “She contracted Covid-19 at a time when ... she ought to have been ‘shielding’, as she had, prior to April 2020, repeatedly requested the defendant to consider allowing her to do. “[Rebecca’s] case of Covid-19 was a particularly awful one. She was admitted to hospital by ambulance on April 7 2020, where two hours later she was transferred to ICU, spending 21 days in critical care, 29 days on a ventilator, and experiencing three cardiac arrests, blood transfusions, sepsis and multiple organ failure.”A nurse from Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, is suing the Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust for failing to protect her from severe Covid-19 complications. The nurse, who has a thyroid, gastric band bypass surgery, and heart condition, claims she should have been shielded and that her requests were ignored. She claims she worked two shifts on Ward 11 at the hospital, where two patients had been transferred from Pinderfields Hospital. The nurse claims she suffered severe effects from the disease and is claiming damages for pain, suffering, and loss of amenity.
‘There are inherent risks’
It states that its policy of following guidance and measures issued by Public Health England and NHS England were “entirely reasonable and best practice”.
In its defence, Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust states: “There are inherent risks in her employment as a nurse that cannot be avoided even where reasonable care is taken and/or reasonable steps and preventative measures are applied. The contraction of Covid-19 is but one of those risks.”
The trust says it did not know the nurse’s health conditions as she had not provided a detailed medical history, and her own GP should have notified her if she was considered vulnerable.
The trust says she should also have used a self-referral assessment tool.
It accuses her of failing to identify the patients she refers to and denies she was not provided with the correct PPE.
Ms Firth’s claim comes as the High Court prepares to hear the case of nearly 70 healthcare workers with long Covid who are seeking damages from the NHS and other employers.
They claim they first caught Covid at work during the pandemic and were not properly protected from the virus.
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