Holly Willoughby has paid tribute to This Morning’s medical expert Dr Uchenna Okoye who has tragically passed away after a ‘sudden illness’ aged 53.

The ‘kind and passionate’ Cosmetic Dentist made numerous appearances on the ITV show, offering advice to viewers at home. She was also a regular guest on 10 Years Younger in 10 Days, Daybreak, and BBC Breakfast.

A heartbreaking statement posted on Dr Uchenna’s Instagram said she had fallen ill at home on Friday September 15 and died shortly after. No cause of death has been provided by her family.

Willoughby, who worked with Dr Uchenna on This Morning, told her followers: ‘Unbelievably sad to hear of the passing of @druchennaokoye. We first worked together many moons ago with @oralb_uk and she was very kind to me… and then of course again, giving her advice on @thismorning. Sending all my love to her family.’

BBC radio presenter Jo Whiley wrote online: ‘Devastating news. Sending love to her daughter, family and London Smiling team. Strong, beautiful, funny Uchenna. Awful. Just awful.’

TV presenter Donna Air posted: ‘What?! No, I’m so confused. How, why… her daughter!! Shocked and saddened.’

Dr Uchenna, who qualified at the prestigious Guy’s Hospital in London, ran two dental practices and owned a line of specialist dental products. 

She was one of a small group of dentists to belong to both the British and American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. 

Outside of directing the London Smiling Dental Group, she regularly appeared on television and radio to provide expert advice. She also was the official dentist of Channel 5‘s makeover programme 10 Years Younger. 

Presenter Cherry Healey of the Channel 5 programme also paid tribute to Dr Uchenna. 

‘There aren’t really the right words to say how much this absolute force of a human being will be missed and how sad this news is.

‘I was so fortunate to work with Dr Uchenna on @10yearsyounger for many happy years, and to then got to know her as a beautiful friend.

‘She spoke with such passion and love for the people she helped smile again – and she was the warmest, smartest, most fun woman you could wish to meet,’ she wrote on Instagram this evening.

Dr Uchenna’s husband Chidi Ngwaba is a doctor who specialises in lifestyle medicine, helping patients who suffer from diabetes, autoimmune diseases and obesity. 

He has also appeared on televisions, including ITV’s Good Morning Britain and the BBC’s Food: Truth or Scare.

The couple share a young daughter.  

Announcing Dr Uchenna’s tragic passing, her family wrote earlier this evening: ‘It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of the much loved and respected Cosmetic Dentist, Dr Uchenna Okoye, who passed away after falling ill at home on Friday 15th September 2023.

‘At this time, we ask for your prayers for her young daughter, her family, her team of staff at London Smiling Dental Group and her friends who are all struggling to come to terms with her loss.

‘We request that you respect Uchenna’s family’s wishes for privacy at this very difficult time.

‘The Uchenna sparkle touched the lives of everyone she met and drew her into stardom on 10 Years Younger makeover show, followed by 10 Years Younger in 10 Days where her passion and compassion leaps off the screen.

‘For the last twenty years, her deep knowledge of dentistry and her incredible chair-side manner made her the go-to spokeswoman for any dental issue and a popular contributor to radio, TV, and women’s consumer press,’ it continued.

Tributes from viewers have poured in for the TV regular with one fan writing: ‘That’s absolutely devastating… sending much love to her family.’

Another wrote: ‘Am absolutely heartbroken to read this. I adored Uchenna. I can’t really process this awful news.’ 

A third commented: ‘Beautiful Uchenna! An industry beacon who quickly became a friend to many of us. So warm, generous and funny. 

‘Sending condolences to her family and friends.’

Another follower wrote: ‘Devastating news. My love and prayers to her family. 

‘We will all miss your infectious energy and warmth.’

While someone else shared: ‘Absolutely shocked about this devastating news! I still can’t believe it. 

‘She was the kindest, loveliest person who I knew briefly. Rest in peace and my condolences to your family and your little girl.’

The news comes just days after Holly Willoughby and This Morning led the tributes to guest Matty Lock after he suddenly died aged 19. 

Holly and co-presenter Dermot O’Leary paid tribute to a ‘truly unique’ and ‘lovely’ member of the studio. 

The ‘delightful’ teenager regularly appeared on the show to review vacuum cleaners, which he had become obsessed with since the age of two when he received his first toy Henry hoover.

The popular youngster was also a member of the Labour Party and recently spoke of his pride at becoming councillor in his hometown of Maghull, Merseyside. 

Sharing the news at the start of Monday’s programme, Dermot said: ‘One of the This Morning family members Matty Lock – you might remember Matty – sadly passed away this weekend.’

Willoughby added: ‘He was a much-loved member of our team who never failed to bring joy and more to our studio with an infectious passion for gadgets and technology. He was truly unique.’

O’Leary continued: ‘Yeah, bless him. His love for vacuum cleaners started when he was just two years old when he received his first toy Henry. 

‘He then went on to become a politician, a campaigner and a much loved member of this show. He’s a lovely guy.’

‘Matthew will be missed by all of us here and we extend our deepest condolences to his family. It was incredibly sad, shocking news to get yesterday’, finished Willoughby.

Matty regularly appeared on This Morning from a young age, including at the age of 15 where he had a segment revealing the best hoovers to buy that summer. 

Private £4,569-a-term day school, Merchant Taylors’ Boys’ School, in Crosby, Liverpool, shared his appearance on the show on its website at the time. 

Matty last posted on his Facebook page in April where he spoke of how he had ‘hit the ground running in delivering for Maghull and residents’ concerns and priorities’ since he had been elected.

At the age of 13 Matty had amassed 150 vacuums as part of his collection.   

He became interested in vacuums aged two when he got his first toy Henry. By the age of five he was hoovering the family home.

Speaking at the time, he said he was cleaning up by fixing old machines and selling them while carrying out repairs on every cleaner on the market.

He said: ‘I remember in year four or five having a rough idea how to take them apart and looking into how to make them run, that’s when the collecting started. 

‘I started finding machines, getting parts and being able to put them together to make a new vacuum.

‘I became more and more interested in getting rarer machines.

‘I like the way they work and seeing how they can be improved. I like seeing how they’ve advanced over the years – different machines do different jobs.

‘I get them off eBay or on Facebook selling sites. I find them in skips and people have even started leaving them outside my back door.

‘Some of the Henrys I have are 40 years old. I like to fix them but if they’re beyond repair I will make a good one out of two hoovers.

‘My collection is mostly Henrys and Dysons. I’ve got original versions which are made out of metal and Bakelite. My collection is well into the hundreds now.

‘They are all in my workshop in my garden which is where I do all my vacuum repairs.’

He spent around ten hours a week fixing broken vacuums, and estimated he had fixed around 500 and sold 300 machines.

From the money he made out of selling on the fixed machines, he reinvested the cash into more broken vacuums.

He added: ‘I just find it so satisfying getting them from places like builder’s yards where they’re full of plaster – being able to clean them up, make them look nice and get them up to a really good standard.’

Mechanics, plumbers, electricians and carpenters often learn their trade on the job. But now a new profession is being added to the list of apprenticeship training schemes: doctor.

So how would you feel if the doctor treating you in hospital or at your GP surgery hadn’t undergone the traditional training of up to six years at medical school (plus another five years to be a GP, or longer for a hospital consultant)?

Are they second-class doctors — or actually better equipped to do the job, as some experts now suggest?

This new apprentice scheme is part of a raft of measures to address the shortage of NHS doctors and create a sustainable future workforce.

Currently, half of new doctors are recruited from abroad as the UK supply route has struggled to keep up with demand.

Meanwhile, the number of home-grown medical students a year is only around 7,500 in England, which has left the country lagging behind other developed countries in terms of doctors per head of population.

One proposal to get doctors into the NHS faster is to reduce medical degrees from five years to four.

Another approach is to employ more physician and anaesthesia ‘associates’. Unlike fully qualified doctors, physician associates do only two years of postgraduate training (generally after a bioscience degree) before they have direct contact with patients. (Anaesthesia associates also do a two-year postgraduate course.)

Physician associates, who are under the supervision of a doctor, generally work in GP surgeries or in A&E, and are permitted to do a range of tasks including diagnosing illnesses, analysing test results and, in some cases, they’re able to provide medication. Anaesthesia associates can give anaesthesia under consultants’ supervision.

The Government is planning greater use of physician associates — with 10,000 on the payroll by 2036/37, up from 3,000 now.

But concerns have been raised about this new medical role after actress Emily Chesterton, 30, died from a blood clot on the lung last October after a physician associate dismissed it as anxiety — Emily thought she had seen a GP.

Her symptoms — calf pain and shortness of breath — should have suggested a pulmonary embolism (a lung clot) and meant she was sent to A&E, a decision which a coroner ruled would probably have saved her life.

She’d been seen twice by the same physician associate at a GP practice in North London, who told her to take anti-anxiety pills which she’d previously been prescribed. 

Her father Brendan said after the inquest in July: ‘We are concerned patients are seeing physician associates and not realising they are not doctors, like Emily.’

Separately, yesterday it was reported that the Royal College of Anaesthetists is being pressed by doctors to halt its support of the anaesthesia associate scheme.

The Doctors’ Association UK, a campaigning group, is concerned titles such as physician associate ‘create misleading impressions for patients, potentially conflating the distinct professional roles of physician associates and doctors’.

It has also said it is ‘not safe’ for the Government to use ‘any alternative healthcare provider as replacements for fully trained doctors’. 

So will the Medical Doctor Apprenticeship scheme provide an acceptable solution to the workforce crisis? Under the scheme, the next generation of doctors will learn how to be a fully-qualified medic without going to university full-time.

They will need the same A-level grades in the same subjects as are needed to get a university place, but they will then study and ‘earn while they learn’; starting paid work on the wards or in GP practices immediately, and learning as they go along.

‘The main difference between the Medical Doctor Apprenticeship and a traditional medical degree is apprentices will work in healthcare from the beginning of their degree while also studying the academic subjects of the medical degree,’ says Elizabeth Hughes, medical director for Undergraduate Medicine at NHS England.

‘They’ll spend most of their time with their employer, which could be a hospital or in general practice. And they’ll work safely under supervision at an appropriate level that is suitable to their stage of training.’

Up to 2,000 prospective doctors a year will be able to train this way in England by 2031/32. The first 200 will begin their five-year apprenticeship programme as part of a pilot scheme next year. 

According to NHS England, it will allow the NHS to ‘draw on the widest pool of talent’ — attracting people traditionally put off medicine by the cost of going to medical school for five years.

This typically leaves them £50,000 to £90,000 in debt.

Apprentices’ tuition fees will be paid by the Government and they’ll also receive a salary from their employer.

‘The aim is to recruit students from varying backgrounds, who may have struggled to pursue a traditional medical degree education, so that future generations of health professionals more closely mirror the population they serve,’ NHS England said last year, when the idea was first suggested.

‘Apprenticeships may also appeal to people who might have gained experience in clinical roles and be ready to start training as a doctor at a later stage in their career.’

Encouraging people from different socio-economic backgrounds to become doctors is universally accepted as a good thing. ‘Medical schools have tried to be inclusive, and some are better at it than others,’ says Barry Paraskeva, a consultant surgeon at Imperial College NHS Trust in London, who helps design teaching for medical students.

But some may see an apprenticeship as the easier option, he says. ‘The training to be a doctor is rigorous. It requires high A-level grades, pre-medical school tests, sometimes a pre-medical degree and a structured interview.

‘Why would you do all that if you can go on the medical apprenticeship scheme?’

Dr Martin Scurr, a retired GP and Good Health columnist, agrees: ‘Is this a way of opening a backdoor for people who academically didn’t get the right grades and can be brought in on the grounds that they will be trained as apprentices?

‘Medicine is a huge course — none of it is very difficult but it is like doing 45 O-levels all at once.

‘In other words, there is an awful lot of it to be crammed into five years, even on the traditional medical school course, never mind working at the same time.’

Concerns are also being raised about how the doctor apprenticeship scheme will work in practice.

Despite being officially announced by NHS England last July, details of the scheme still remain sketchy and the start date for the pilot scheme has already been put back a year, from this month to 2024. 

It is also not clear what kind of work they will do, how much they will be paid and who will monitor them.

Nor do we know what proportion of their time will be spent working compared with studying. And how does ‘study’ work if you’re on the wards? And who will train and supervise these students? Another unanswered question.

Queen Mary University of London is one of the medical schools known to be taking part in the scheme. But when Good Health contacted it for more details, we were told: ‘It’s still not something we can speak about at this time.’

What we do know is that at the end of the scheme apprentices will have to take the same exams as other medical students to join the medical register, run by the General Medical Council.

Clare Owen, assistant director of the Medical Schools Council, which represents the 46 medical schools in the UK, says: ‘The knowledge and outcomes needed will be exactly the same as for someone going through a traditional medical degree. How that balances out in practice between lecture-based and practical-based learning will be down to individual medical schools.’

Mr Paraskeva believes on-the-job experience is vital for training doctors. ‘When I was training, medical students were part of the team: we were on call, carried a bleep, took blood and saw patients. It was like an apprenticeship,’ he says.

‘Medical students now seem to be on the wards less than they were and that means they sometimes don’t want or feel comfortable putting themselves in situations where they are doing clinical work like taking blood.

‘If an apprenticeship reintroduces a more hands-on approach, it would be a good thing for doctors and patients. I would challenge medical schools to say why this is not happening anyway for students going down the more traditional route.’

Separately, will apprentices who graduate have the same career opportunities as their medical school peers?

Mr Paraskeva has his doubts: ‘If you want to be a surgeon or oncologist, would the apprentices be as equipped academically as someone who has gone down the traditional medical school route?

‘Or would they be disadvantaged because they don’t have the academic background?’

Dr Scurr fears the scheme could create a ‘second-class cadre of doctors’. ‘By definition, they will be the students who didn’t get into medical school. There will be positives but it’s going to be like the curate’s egg — it’s going to be good in parts — and that is a worry for the NHS and patients.’

Manchester United ‘fear Dean Henderson could FAIL medical and re-injure himself’ if Nottingham Forest push for transfer, with club planning to delay move until goalkeeper is fitter as he recovers from torn thigh

• Dean Henderson was on loan at Nottingham Forest last season but got injured
• He tore thigh muscle and has still not fully recovered from the set-back
• Move to Forest might have to wait until closer to the end of the transfer window 

By Will Griffee For Mailonline

Updated: 02:25 EDT, 9 August 2023

Medical degrees are set to be slashed from five years to four in a drive to put tens of thousands of extra doctors on hospital wards.

Ministers plan to take advantage of Brexit to change rules on training, which were previously imposed by the EU.

The move forms part of a package of measures aimed at slashing waiting lists by boosting the NHS workforce, with 60,000 more doctors and an extra 170,000 nurses by 2036/37.

Bosses also expect to have an additional 71,000 allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, midwives and pharmacists.

The ambitious proposals are detailed in the first NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan, which is published today and supported by £2.4billion of Government funding.

The blueprint warns that staffing shortages within the health service could more than triple over the next 15 years – from 112,000 to 360,000 – as a result of a growing and ageing population, coupled with new treatments. 

The NHS says it will seek to embrace more homegrown talent and reduce its reliance on overseas employees as competition for healthcare workers is rising around the world.

A record recruitment drive will also allow it to become less dependent on expensive agency staff, cutting the bill for taxpayers by around £10billion between 2030 and 2037.

Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, described it as a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity to put staffing on a sustainable footing and improve patient care’.

Measures in the plan, which comes ahead of the NHS’s 75th anniversary on Wednesday, include:

• Doubling medical school training places to 15,000 by 2031, with new schools and more places in areas with the greatest shortages;

• Increasing GP training places by half to 6,000 by 2031;

• Almost doubling the number of adult nurse training places, with 24,000 more nurse and midwife training places a year by 2031;

• Allowing staff to ‘earn while they learn’, with apprenticeships that lead to a full degree but more-on-the-job training;

• Greater reliance on ‘associate’ roles that can help with less demanding tasks, freeing up senior colleagues for complex cases;

• Expanding training for clinical psychology and child and adolescent psychotherapy, with places rising by more than a quarter to 1,300 by 2031;

• A renewed focus on retention with better opportunities for career development, improved flexible working and pension reforms to keep 130,000 staff working in the NHS for longer.

The NHS and Government will consult with the medical regulator and universities on introducing four-year medical degrees. Graduates would still need to follow their degrees with a further two years of foundation training in a hospital, as is currently the case.

Prior to exiting the EU, UK training was governed by the Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications directive (MRPQ), which stipulates 5,500 training hours and at least five years to become a doctor. 

The Department of Health and Social Care says that now the UK is no longer bound by the directive it can consider options on how to shorten training periods.

The General Medical Council would need to be assured of no risk to patient safety but last night appeared to back the move, saying there is ‘a strong case for innovation in medical education’.

Over the next five years alone, medical places may increase by almost a third, nursing degrees will increase by more than a third and GP training places will jump by a quarter. 

Meanwhile, 16 per cent of all training places for clinical staff will be offered through apprenticeships by 2028 – including more than 850 medical students. 

Mrs Pritchard said: ‘The publication of our first-ever NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan now gives us a once–in–a–generation opportunity to put staffing on sustainable footing for the years to come.

‘As we look to adapt to new and rising demand for health services globally, this long-term blueprint is the first step in a major and much-needed expansion of our workforce to ensure we have the staff we need to deliver for patients.’

Louise Ansari, chief executive of Healthwatch England, said patients will ‘really welcome the news’ that the NHS will train more doctors and nurses.

But Dr Latifa Patel, workforce lead at the British Medical Association, said: ‘Accelerated undergraduate degrees and apprenticeships are untested, and must not mean a two-tiered system of doctors.’

Rishi Sunak said: ‘On the 75th anniversary of our health service, this Government is making the largest single expansion in NHS education and training in its history. This is a plan for investment and a plan for reform.’

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: ‘Our plan will end the reliance on expensive agency staff, while cutting waiting lists in the coming years and building an NHS which can match up to the scale of tomorrow’s challenges.’

Professor Sir Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, also backed the proposed reforms to training and staff retention, saying they will ‘create opportunities for more people to study and train in parts of the country that have historically struggled to recruit’.

The Health Secretary said the plan was about getting ‘care to patients quicker’ as he pledged to boost domestic training and improve job opportunities for staff already working in the service.

Steve Barclay told Sky News: ‘It is a hugely important day for the NHS. It is something that many in the NHS have been asking for, for a long time, to have a long-term workforce plan.

‘It is the biggest ever expansion in workforce training in the NHS’ history. It is backed up by £2.4billion of additional funding over the next five years.

‘And what it will do is train more staff, more doctors, more nurses, more midwives, but also give more opportunities to the staff within the NHS in terms of apprenticeships, developing more skills, their continual professional development.

‘And it will also look at how we reform some of our training, making that more efficient so that we can get care to patients quicker.

‘We recognise from the pandemic that there are big waiting lists, we’ve got a plan to clear those but in terms of the longer-term position of the NHS, we also need to boost our domestic training, and that is what the plan today sets out, that long-term vision for the NHS.’

Latest NHS performance data shows that the waiting list for routine operations soared to another record high.

More than 7.42million patients in England — or one in eight people — are now in the queue for ops like hip replacements. This includes 370,000 people stuck in limbo for at least a year, often in pain.

Experts have warned the backlog won’t start to shrink until the huge staffing crisis engulfing the ailing health service starts to ease. 

But strikes by up to 34,000 NHS consultants over two days next month, is likely to lead to the cancellation of more than 300,000 appointments, hampering efforts to clear record waiting lists.

It is estimated that more than 650,000 routine operations and appointments have been put off since December due to industrial action. 

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting told Times Radio he had been calling on the Government to adopt Labour’s plan for the biggest expansion of of the NHS workforce in history.

He added: ‘To be fair to the Government, it looks like they’re about to adopt our plan, and that’s important because having had an understaffed NHS for more than a decade.

‘Knowing how long it takes to train new doctors, new nurses, new midwives, it’s really important that we get our skates on as a country. And if the Government have swallowed their pride and adopted our plan, why wouldn’t I welcome that?’

Asked if he would stick to the plan if Labour won the next general election, Mr Streeting said he would be speaking further to Steve Barclay, adding: ‘It is important that we do long term planning and I think one of the reasons the NHS is in the state that it’s in today is because for 13 years now, we have not had a consistent plan.’

He added that the ‘lesson from the last Labour Government is that it’s investment that matters but also reform and where we would go further than the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history, which we’d already committed to, is a reform agenda that seeks to modernise the NHS and make sure it’s fit to meet the challenges of 2048 rather than 1948 when it was created.

He said care needed to be shifted into the community and the NHS needed to switch ‘from an analogue NHS to a digital NHS’, adding: ‘We’ve also got to shift the focus so that we’re not just the national sickness service, but one that focuses on promoting good health – prevention is really crucial.’

He said the NHS ‘is a service not a shrine’ and ‘we’ve got to stop kind of just thinking of it as a national religion and make sure that it is an institution and a system that delivers the best outcomes and it’s got the potential to do that, but it does need reform.’

Ex-Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, 86, is hospitalised for medical checks two months after being diagnosed with leukaemia and a lung infection

• Silvio Berlusconi, 86, has been admitted to Milan’s San Raffaele hospital 

By Rachael Bunyan

Published: 10:20 EDT, 9 June 2023 | Updated: 11:36 EDT, 9 June 2023

Millions of us already trust Dr Google, but now there’s a new online doctor in town.

A British medical student has created an AI chatbot which claims to provide ‘more reliable health information’ than the search engine.

BTRU — pronounced Better You — trawls through pages from the likes of the World Health Organization to give users personalised answers, just like ChatGPT.

Ian Soh, 22, who is in his penultimate year at St George’s Medical Hospital in south London, insists the bot he has created is ‘reliable’.

He said: ‘I believe in a time when people can take control of their health, find reliable health information and make sense of their health, no matter their background.’

But experts today insisted AI medical advice will never be able to replace that of a human doctor.  

Gynaecologist Narendra Pisal said that knowing someone’s personal history is ‘vital’ to diagnosis. 

Mr Pisa, of the private London Gynaecology clinic, said: ‘This is one of the reasons why AI will not replace medical expertise. 

‘Ability to ask relevant questions regarding the context is so important when giving a medical opinion. 

‘Often that comes from obtaining a detailed history.’

Other experts raised concern over some of the answers given by BTRU. 

MailOnline tested the chatbot by asking: ‘I am a man, can I get womb cancer?’

The bot said that men could get cancer in their womb if they have ‘a history of high oestrogen levels’. It added that symptoms in men are ‘vaginal bleeding, pelvic pain and discharge’. 

Women’s health expert Dr Semiya Aziz, a GP in north London, said: ‘It has failed to clarify the terminology of men, so it is an incorrect answer.’

Only biological women can get womb cancer because males aren’t born with one.

Women who transition to men, however, and get diagnosed with the disease might consider themselves males.

Dr Aziz added that AI can create ‘unnecessary anxiety’ for people who cannot see a doctor, as well have an impact on their mental health. 

BTRU did, however, dismiss the idea that men could get pregnant, describing male pregnancy as a ‘subject of science-fiction’ that has ‘no basis in reality’.

One NHS doctor told MailOnline she has seen an increase in people claiming to have an emotional connection with ‘health robots’.  

Dr Hana Patel, who works as a GP in southeast London, said: ‘I already have patients coming in with Dr Google diagnoses and expectations of how to manage their symptoms.

‘It may be even more difficult to manage patients who trust and feel that they have a connection with an AI health robot, especially if this gives them an answer regarding a question they have at that time.’

The search tool gave different responses to NHS advice pages, which have been criticised for erasing gender-based language. 

NHS guidance for the menopause is just one of the topics at the centre of a gender-neutral storm. 

It used to describe the condition as ‘when a woman stops having periods and is no longer able to get pregnant naturally’. But it now reads: ‘Menopause is when your periods stop due to lower hormone levels’.

The first mention of the term ‘women’ in the new version is found in the fourth page, in a section about drugs to treat the condition.

No such gender-neutral changes have been made to male cancers, like testicular cancer.  

The BTRU founder said he wants his platform to achieve better health advice online.

He said: ‘I believe in a time when people can take control of their health, find reliable health information and make sense of their health, no matter their background’, he added. 

Woman in her 30s dies following a medical incident at Center Parcs – as police launch probe into the ‘unexplained’ death

• The woman died following an incident at the resort in Elveden Forest, Suffolk

By Alexander Butler

Published: 07:52 EDT, 9 June 2023 | Updated: 08:46 EDT, 9 June 2023

Alexis Mac Allister is given permission to undergo a medical with Liverpool as the Reds close in on the £60m signing of the Brighton midfielder

• Alexis Mac Allister will undergo his medical ahead of his move to Liverpool 
• The Argentine World Cup winner is set to become the Reds first summer signing 
• Mac Allister’s imminent arrival will start the reshaping of Jurgen Klopp’s midfield 

By Dominic King and Michael Pavitt For Mailonline

Published: 08:08 EDT, 6 June 2023 | Updated: 08:20 EDT, 6 June 2023

Row at the General Medical Council as doctors accuse the regulators of failing to tackle medics who spread Covid vaccine conspiracies

• Doctors have accused the GMC failing at its role as the standards regulator 
• It is supposed to police doctors and ensure standards to protect the public  

By Pat Hagan

Updated: 17:58 EDT, 3 June 2023

If a friend or loved one suffers a medical emergency, it can be easy to panic. 

More and more Americans are avoiding the emergency room, according to a January poll from Gallup, with nearly four in 10 putting off medical treatment due to financial concerns. 

However, ER doctors say that taking someone to the hospital yourself instead of waiting for an ambulance could deny them vital medical care. 

Calling an ambulance could save a life and prevent complications. 

Speed is also essential. Research shows that someone having a stroke loses 1.9 million neurons each minute they are left untreated. 

Dr Robert Femia, chair of emergency medicine at NYU Langone Health, told DailyMail.com about the three mistakes people make when dealing with an emergency that could cost a life.

Don’t Delay Calling 911 

This is Dr Femia’s number one tip, mainly because ‘many things that that we can do are time sensitive,’ he said. 

‘There’s a golden hour where the sooner you can get patients, for example, to a trauma center, their survivability is much greater,’ he said.  

Calling 911 as soon as possible is the first step to getting someone care.  

In situations like a stroke, for example, timely care is key to avoiding lasting consequences, including memory loss, mobility, and speech problems. 

‘You really want to activate the 911 system to get people either care on the scene by healthcare professionals or get them to the hospital as quickly as possible,’ Dr Femia said. 

Avoid calling the person’s loved ones or friends until 911 has been contacted and emergency services are on the way. 

‘If it’s truly an emergency, you don’t want to necessarily waste time calling a friend who’s in healthcare, or a family doctor’s office. If it’s truly an emergency, you should be calling 911,’ Dr Femia said. 

Don’t Drive the Person Yourself

While it may seem like a good idea instead if there are ambulance delays, Dr Femia said that trying to drive someone to the hospital yourself could further prolong treatment.  

With an ambulance, you’re bringing care directly to the patient in a way that you can’t with any other method of transportation.  

‘The EMS system carries many life-saving drugs,’ he said. 

This includes defibrillators, IV fluids, and and cardiac medications. 

Emergency medical services also know where the best hospitals are to bring patients with specialized symptoms. For example, if someone is having a stroke, paramedics are more likely to know where the nearest stroke center is. 

‘All of those things can really help save a life,’ Dr Femia said. 

He said this is true for any life-threatening condition.  

Look for an AED

Dr Femia recommends that if other bystanders are busy calling 911 and watching the person, scan the area for an automated external defibrillator (AED). 

An AED is an easy-to-use medical device meant for someone who is experiencing cardiac arrest. 

‘A lot of public places now have AEDs on the wall,’ Dr Femia said. ‘Somebody should be looking for that while someone else is calling 911.’ 

This device requires no previous medical knowledge, he said, and it has instructions to guide a person through the process. 

In public, these are often stored near stairs or elevators, in lobbies, or by entrances.

Don’t Move the Person

This is especially dangerous if you don’t know what exactly happened to the person. If they have a traumatic injury, moving them could lead to permanent effects, such as paralysis. 

You may get the instinct to move a person closer to your car or to another area so you can transport them easier, but Dr Femia said that can do more harm than good because you aren’t calling 911.

‘Not only could you injure them, but you’re also just delaying getting the appropriate care to them,’ he said. 

To avoid this, leave it up to emergency medical teams to move the patient safely. 

These strategies can be used in most emergencies, but saving someone’s life from a drug overdose require more specialized measures. 

… and how to stop a fentanyl overdose

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. 

It binds to opioid receptors in a person’s nervous system, which are responsible for giving the body a pleasurable feeling when activated.

It takes a vanishingly small dose of fentanyl to cause a fatal overdose. Just two milligrams, the equivalent of five grains of salt, is enough to cause death. 

The National Institutes of Health estimated fentanyl-related deaths in young people increased by 182 percent from 2019 to 2021.  

The drug has become the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 49. It has also dropped the average life expectancy in the US from 78.8 in 2019 to 76.4 in 2021. Experts have described this drop as ‘dramatic’ and ‘substantial.’ 

Because of this widespread epidemic, overdosing has become one of the most common medical emergencies in the US.  

Bystanders can administer Narcan, a nasal spray that has been shown to quickly reverse an opioid overdose. 

It has been shown to prevent fatal overdoses from fentanyl, as well as drugs such as oxycodone and heroin.

Narcan is administered via a nasal spray.

The person’s head should be tilted back with neck support before inserting the tip of the nozzle into one nostril. 

Your fingers on either side of the nozzle should be against the bottom of the person’s nose. 

Press the red plunger firmly to give the dose, then remove from the nostril. The dose takes two to three minutes to work. If there is no change after three to five minutes, administer a second dose.

Narcan only lasts between 30 and 90 minutes, so it is possible that another overdose could occur. Stay with the person and wait out the risk period so another dose can be administered accordingly. 

If the person goes into cardiac arrest, their chances of survival dwindle the longer the arrest lasts.  

Always call emergency medical help after administering the dose.