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BBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe public inquiry into the pandemic will start 10 weeks of hearings on Monday looking at the impact on patients, healthcare workers and the wider NHS. <\/p>\n Covid patients have been admitted to hospital more than a million times in the UK since the virus emerged in 2020, while countless others have had care for other conditions disrupted. <\/p>\n The third stage of the inquiry<\/a> will also examine the impact on NHS staff, the use of masks and PPE in hospitals, the policy of shielding the most vulnerable and the treatment of long Covid. <\/p>\n And for the first time, the stories of more than 30,000 healthcare staff, patients and relatives will form part of the material entered into evidence.<\/p>\n BBC News has spoken to some of them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt was absolutely horrendous. We were really struggling, having to scrounge around for masks and gloves,\u201c says Mandi Masters, a community midwife from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.<\/p>\n At that early stage the NHS was, she says, \u201cworking in the dark\u201d as the virus spread from China to Italy and then to the UK.<\/p>\n Mandi later caught Covid herself \u2013 she is convinced at work \u2013 and ended up in hospital on oxygen for three weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cMy husband took me to A&E but had to leave me there, turn around and walk away,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe news was coming out on how many health professionals were dying of Covid, but I was just too poorly to care at that point,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cLooking back, I have to admit, it was extremely frightening.\u201d<\/p>\n Mandi, 62, has now returned to work part-time, but still struggles to catch her breath after a short walk.<\/p>\n Every cold or chest infection \u201cwipes her out\u201d and she \u201cgrieves for the person I was before Covid\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The third section of the Covid public inquiry will look in detail at the effect on healthcare workers.<\/p>\n It will also cover:<\/p>\n It has to examine the impact on the wider healthcare system, including the sharp increase in delays and waiting lists triggered by the pandemic.<\/p>\n Lynda Ross, from Portadown, was booked in for spinal surgery in early 2020.<\/p>\n Her operation was cancelled and, by the time she could see her specialist again, she was told it was too late for treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cThe consequence of that is I have to live my life in a level of pain that has me on the same medication as someone who is dying from cancer.\u201d she says.<\/p>\n “It feels like the rest of my life has been destroyed.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n More than 50 witnesses are expected to give evidence over the next 10 weeks, including scientists, medical experts, healthcare workers and politicians.<\/p>\n Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, which represents more than 7,000 relatives, says it is \u201cdeeply worried\u201d that only two of the 23 witnesses it has put forward have been called to appear.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout our input, the inquiry risks repeating the mistakes that played out during the pandemic by failing to take into consideration the lived experience of ordinary families,\u201d said its spokesperson Rivka Gottlieb.<\/p>\nTreatments and backlogs<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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