London: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed for the first time on Sunday that there were “contingency plans” in place in case things went “badly wrong” and he died during his treatment for COVID-19 in a hospital here last month.
The 55-year-old leader, who returned to work at 10 Downing Street after his recovery last week, said that he was given “litres and litres of oxygen” after going into intensive care at St Thomas’ Hospital on April 7.
“It was a tough old moment, I won’t deny it. They had a strategy to deal with a ‘death of Stalin’-type scenario,” he told the newspaper. “I was not in particularly brilliant shape and I was aware there were contingency plans in place. The doctors had all sorts of arrangements for what to do if things went badly wrong. They gave me a face mask so I got litres and litres of oxygen and for a long time I had that and the little nose jobbie,” he said.
Johnson admitted that he was “in denial” about how serious his condition was after testing positive for coronavirus and that he really did not want to go to hospital.
“I said I really didn’t want to go into hospital. It didn’t seem to me to be a good move but they were pretty adamant. Looking back, they were right to force me to go,” he said. “It was hard to believe that in just a few days my health had deteriorated to this extent. I remember feeling frustrated. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting better,” he said during an emotional interview.
“But the bad moment came when it was 50-50 whether they were going to have to put a tube down my windpipe. That was when it got a bit… they were starting to think about how to handle it presentationally.”
In reference to his time in intensive care, he added: “Because the bloody indicators kept going in the wrong direction and I thought, ‘There’s no medicine for this thing and there’s no cure’. That was the stage when I was thinking, ‘How am I going to get out of this?'” Johnson admits he was coming to terms – probably for the first time – with his own mortality. He had been in hospital several times before, usually with rugby injuries, but nothing quite like this. He said: “I’ve broken my nose, I’ve broken my finger, I’ve broken my wrist, I’ve broken my rib. I’ve broken just about everything. I’ve broken all sorts of things, several times in some cases. But I’ve never had anything as serious as this.” Johnson had been diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26 and was admitted to the hospital 10 days later.
The following day, he was moved to intensive care. He said his recovery was due to the “wonderful, wonderful nursing” and felt “lucky” to have come out of the deadly disease, given so many others were still suffering. (PTI)
