Monika Lakomy-Diep last week was miserable to find an allergy doctor for her daughter, as the country's health system struggled against Covid-19.

"The National Health Service (NHS) is struggling to deal with Covid-19. Setting a doctor's appointment is now a miracle," said Lakomy-Diep, a 30-year-old accountant, standing outside the Hospital. St. Thomas in the city of London.

Covid-19 appeared at a time that couldn't be worse for NHS. After a decade of constant budget cuts, the system fell short of tens of thousands of employees and record long emergency waiting times. Many doctors worry about the risk of their system collapsing before "Tyvid-19".

"When I had to join the frontline in combating the epidemic, I realized the true impact of the lack of resources. We didn't have enough nurses and many patients had to wait a long time for surgery," said Rosena Allin-Khan. , an emergency doctor at the south London hospital and a Labor Labor MP, said.

Allin-Khan said that the British health system needs to be revised. "I believe that Covid-19 will expose large loopholes in the NHS system," she said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last week that he hoped Covid-19's peak time could be pushed back to the end of spring to avoid the risk of NHS being "knocked out".

"If we can delay Covid-19 to its peak, even just a few weeks, NHS will be able to better respond to the epidemic, because the improved weather will cause fewer people to suffer from common respiratory diseases. The hospital will then have more empty beds and we will have more time to study, "Johnson said.

Ron Daniels, NHS emergency resuscitation doctor, said if the government's strategy worked, NHS would be able to cope with the epidemic. By contrast, the UK could fall into the same situation as Italy, which has recorded nearly 3,000 deaths from Covid-19.

"If the epidemic continues to spread quickly and we cannot change our social behaviors, NHS will quickly become overloaded, like what happened in the Lombardy region of Italy," Daniels said.

But across the UK, hospitals are having to suspend nearly every activity, except for the most urgent procedures to be ready to handle an influx of nCoV patients. The operating room is transformed into an isolation chamber, while the physicians are retrained on how to meet the needs of nCoV-infected patients.

Many front-line physicians complain about the lack of testing equipment and protective gear, raising fears that health-care workers could be factors that could spread the virus or be forced to quarantine during the system. I need them most.

The most worrying thing is the limited number of ventilators, which is difficult to meet if the number of patients increases sharply over the next few weeks, causing the doctor to eventually decide which patients to prioritize. forced to leave someone to die from nCoV.

"It's the story we talk the most about these days," said Dr. Jenny Vaughan. "If we look at the numbers, we will have to make very difficult decisions."

The formal and late preparation made hospitals and medical staff across the UK "strangely calm", but some doctors described it as a moment of silence before the war. intense.

"We feel like we are just waiting for the enemy to strike us on the head," said Dr Nick Scriven, an expert on emergency situations in northern England.

To avoid a similar scenario to Italy, the UK government has introduced a series of regulations to reduce the number of new cases and prevent the NHS system from being "broken".

They urged people at home to work, to avoid going to pubs, restaurants or theaters to limit the spread of Covid-19, an epidemic that has caused at least 104 deaths and more than 2,600 people infected in the country. join this But unlike many other European countries, including Ireland, the UK has not yet closed its schools.

During a press conference on March 16, Prime Minister Johnson asked people to avoid unnecessary travel and social interaction, and not to nursing homes. He also urged seniors over the age of 70 and people with serious health problems not to go out in the next 12 weeks.

"We now appear to be on the fast-growing stage of the epidemic, and without drastic action, the number of cases could double every 5-6 days," Johnson said.

Prime Minister Johnson said he did not order a partial school closure because it would keep many parents, including NHS employees, at home with their children. The British Foreign Office also recommends that citizens avoid traveling abroad if not necessary.

NHS is an organization established by the British government in 1948, after the end of World War II, in an effort to reform to bring about lifelong health protection to the people. This system provides everything from routine checkups to free cancer surgery for people.

For most of its operating time, NHS's annual budget increase is about 4% of the inflation rate. But after the 2008 global financial crisis, the UK government has reduced this level to 1.5% and maintained over the past decade, according to Siva Anandaciva, chief testing officer of the health care research center. King's Fun.

In parliament last week, Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, criticized Prime Minister Johnson for lack of health budget. "Why doesn't the Prime Minister admit that since 2015, the three Conservatives should have repaired their leaks before it rained?" Davey criticized.

"We have 8,700 more nurses compared to the previous year and are recruiting 50,000 more," critics Johnson.

In a statement last week, British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to provide all necessary resources for NHS to combat Covid-19, including an extract from the $ 6 billion Covid-19 emergency fund.

Many Britons have a hard time accepting the fact that NHS is struggling because they are so proud of it. Anandaciva said the health service regularly ranked first in public opinion polls about British pride.

"For them, this system is seen as a social construct because it is comprehensive, universal and free to use. I think it speaks to the British identity, about fairness and solidarity, cohesion. together, "Anandaciva said.

But Tom Gardiner, a respiratory doctor at St. John's Hospital Mary, in London, says the recent increase in the number of nCoV-infected patients makes it clear that the existing NHS facilities, beds and manpower are inadequate.

"We are trying to manage, but it 's near the threshold," Gardiner said. As a front-line doctor, he predicted that he would soon get nCoV. "I thought it was inevitable. And I would definitely spread it to someone who was more vulnerable than me."

But British doctors say they are still trying to hide their fears. "We are very scared," said Roshana Mehdian, an orthopedic surgeon in London. "But we also have to be tough. People are putting their hopes in the NHS and we don't want them to panic."