Coronavirus: 'Frightened' doctor thanks colleagues after contracting Covid-19

A trauma doctor who contracted Covid-19 says he was frightened he would die alone in hospital.

Dr Hamza Ansari, who is from Canada but came to work in Shropshire last year, fell ill last month and was admitted to the hospital he works at with respiratory failure.

With his wife and daughter stuck in Canada, he was cared for by a colleague when he was well enough to leave.

He said he feels "much better" and now knows what it is like to be patient.

Praising all the staff that nursed him at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) he said: "I want to say a massive thank you as, without them, I wouldn't have made it out alive.

"They helped me so much, everything they did was incredible."

Dr Ansari was helping to divert non-Covid orthopaedic patients to a hospital in Oswestry when he started to feel unwell and and then stayed at home to isolate.

But his condition worsened and after becoming short of breath and having a high temperature, Dr Ansari, who has asthma, was admitted to RSH where he tested positive for the virus.

However, he deteriorated further and was taken to the high dependency ward (HDU) where he stayed for nine days before recovering.

But as his family could not return to the UK after travelling to Canada for a holiday, the doctor's senior consultant decided to care for him at his family home until he was well enough to continue to recover alone.

Dr Ansari said he was "devastated" he might not be able to speak to his wife and "kept thinking about the prospect of my daughter growing up without me if I didn't make it".

"I knew that my health was moving in the wrong direction and I was really frightened that I would die alone in the hospital."

But he said he now feels a lot better and never imagined he would be "fighting tooth and nail for my life in HDU".

"I now know what it's like to be a patient in our hospitals and I couldn't be happier with care I was provided."

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