The horrifying toll of lockdown on the poor and mentally ill

I start the week with someone throwing faeces at me. I thought people were supposed to clap for doctors these days, not hurl poo at them? Never mind. Thankfully I’m fast on my feet despite it being the early hours of the morning, and dodge the mess, which hits the wall behind me. I’m working a week of nights covering A&E for mental health and this kind of mayhem is not as unusual as you might expect. The naked man, covered in excrement, runs around screaming. The nurse with me doesn’t even flinch. I love A&E nurses. They’ve seen and heard it all. I’m sure if there were a nuclear Armageddon, it would only be cockroaches and A&E nurses who would survive. The A&E nurse, along with security guards, wearing gloves and flimsy plastic aprons, grapple the filthy young man to the ground. They’re going to want to wash their hands for more than 20 seconds after that. He’s sedated and, after many hours, a bed in a psychiatric ward is found. He’d become psychotic after spending the weeks of lockdown sitting in his university digs alone, smoking skunk. I’ve seen quite a few of these patients with pretty much the same story in recent weeks, particularly overseas students who have been stranded here, alone and bored, doing drugs and frying their minds.

I’m horrified at the effect lockdown is having, particularly on the poor. A young woman recently sat in my outpatients clinic and asked me to take her children away. She was calm and at first I thought she was joking. ‘Why?’ I asked. She simply couldn’t cope any more. Then, as she began to sob, she confessed she was worried she would end up killing them and then herself.