Madeleine Worrall on waiting for emergency surgery, and Helen Hills on the everyday anguish in care homes
I don’t know why people are saying there is a risk that the NHS will buckle; it already has (Hospitals in England draw up plans for significant Covid staff absences, 17 December). This Christmas I hope some children get to enjoy the National Theatre’s Peter Pan, in which I played Wendy, online. I, however, having sustained a very nasty double break in my ankle, have just been told that the critical surgery necessary to ensure I will be able to walk properly again is delayed because a whole major surgery ward at King’s College hospital has closed due to Covid.
The staff are making heroic efforts to get those of us who are on their emergency lists into surgery. To do this they have to make agonising decisions, cancelling elective surgery. If I can’t ever go on the flying wires again on the Olivier stage, or walk properly, it will be a tragedy for me, but nothing compared to the incalculable deaths sustained because there aren’t enough ambulances or ICU beds for people with fatal conditions.
