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Two doctors describe working on the frontline of Liverpool’s second wave – In Depth Out Loud podcast

Two healthcare workers at bedside of a covid patient.
Hospitals have been squeezed and lack adequate government support. Peter Byrne/PA Wire

This episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast features a report from two doctors on the frontline of the second wave of coronavirus in Liverpool.

Tom Wingfield, an infectious diseases physician at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the University of Liverpool, and Miriam Taegtmeyer, professor of global health at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, describe what it’s like for healthcare workers who continue to put their lives and those of their families on the line.


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They describe arriving at work to face daily, sometimes dangerous, staff shortages but also seeing the inherent resourcefulness of NHS healthcare workers. Some specialist colleagues have expanded their care to cover or lead COVID-19 wards. Other hospital doctors have β€œupskilled” to look after people needing ventilators. What is unclear, they say, is how long they can keep stepping up.

They set out the problems they and their colleagues are facing around the country, some lessons we might be able to learn from the first wave, and some positive developments which will make the future a little brighter.

You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by Megan Clement and produced by Gemma Ware.

This story came out of a project at The Conversation called Coronavirus Insights supported by Research England.

The music in In Depth Out Loud is Night Caves, by Lee Rosevere.

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