COVID
NEWS...COVID NEWS
LONDON CABBIE WHO BATTLED COVID FOR 222 DAYS SAYS “WE CAN SEND THIS VIRUS PACKING IN A TAXI”
A cabbie who is Britain’s longest-suf- fering Covid patient to finally go home has triumphantly declared the nation can “send this virus packing in a taxi”. The Sun reports that Ali Sakallioglu, 56, spent 222 days in hospital and care - and his family were told three times he was going to die. But grandad-of-nine Ali beat the virus and returned home to Catford, London on Armistice Day to rapturous applause as neighbours lined the streets to wel- come him. And in a passionate message to the nation, he said: “Britain, we can do this. We can beat Covid together. We can win this war like we won World War One and Two.” He added: “If I can beat it, anyone can. I’m not some miracle. We just have to unite, do what the Government and
scientists tell us to do and we’ll eventually send this virus packing in a taxi, never to return.” The dad of five, who is at high- er risk due to Type 1 dia-
betes, fell ill at the end of March. He was told to self-isolate after calling 111. But his condition deteriorated, so on April 3 he was taken to hospital and put on a ventilator. Four days later, he had a heart attack and had surgery and was placed in an induced coma for three months. Ali said: “I should be dead. I had so
many things wrong with me but the human body is an amazing thing. The NHS staff and my family have just been absolutely amazing. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today.” Ali had a tracheotomy to help him breathe at the end of May and started coming out of the coma on July 1. He said: “I couldn’t move at all when I came out of the coma. That was one of the scariest moments of my life - I thought I was paralysed.” Ali began doing physio and was grad- ually able to walk and talk and moved to a nearby nursing home on October 10. He lost 2.5 stone and he now has to take 26 tablets a day, mostly pain relief. Ali insisted: “I’m looking forward to get- ting back behind the wheel of my cab.”
ESSEX TAXI DRIVER’S DEATH BLAMED ON NHS BECOMING THE “NATIONAL COVID SERVICE”
The heartbroken wife of a former black cab driver who died from a suspected ruptured gallbladder says lives are being lost because the NHS has become the “National Covid Service - not the NHS”. According to EssexLive, Lisa King’s appeal comes as the chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Prof Martin Marshall, said that GPs were ‘taking risks’ by working remotely and not detecting soft signs of illness. Lisa could only watch as her husband Peter died in their living room after col- lapsing with a massive heart attack. The 62-year-old had been due to have his gallbladder removed, which had already once become infected in July and which doctors had then misdiag- nosed in an online appointment as a digestive problem. Instead it turned out he needed urgent medical attention as a rancid gall stone
DECEMBER 2020
was lodged in his bile duct and his gallbladder was badly infected and inflamed. Peter had been told the infection would have to clear up before an oper-
ation to remove it could take place. By August the infection had gone and he was to have an operation in four weeks. But on October 9, after appearing fine in the morning, Peter took a turn for the worse. Lisa said: “He was sweating but freezing. I told 999 that I think his gallbladder was ruptured. He’s in a lot of pain. After 20 minutes the ambu- lance came. “They did an ECG and took his blood pressure, then he had a fit. They tried to shock him. That didn’t work.” Lisa said paramedics gave Peter 14
shocks and tried to revive him for an hour. But eventually they had to turn the machine off as he’d had a major heart attack. Lisa was told that the gallbladder may have ruptured. “It’s so sad that he is a non-Covid patient dying because the hospitals are not doing these operations.” She added: “If he had been seen face to face they would have known instantly it was a problem with his gallbladder. And they would have sent him off to the surgical day unit.” Prof Marshall said that the govern- ment’s ‘protect the NHS’ message at the start of the pandemic was ‘unhelp- ful’. “We are potentially taking risks by not seeing people face to face. When doesn’t face to face add value? Lisa added: “This situation has cost lives. It has cost me my husband’s life. It has cost his children their father’s life.”
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