Fuel crisis could endanger life: NHS

By Dick Durham
CNN.com writer

LONDON, England -- The mounting fuel crisis in Europe will start to claim the lives of those awaiting hospital treatment in Britain if it continues, officials say.

Already thousands of the elderly and hundreds waiting for operations have been temporarily abandoned as ambulance journeys have been cut back.

Also many visits made by local doctors and district nurses have stopped as their cars have run out of petrol.

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But if the blockades of refineries and fuel depots run on indefinitely ambulance crews, paramedics and top hospital staff will be prevented from getting to work -- also endangering lives, a spokesman for the Department of Health in London told CNN.com.

"The first impact on the NHS has been that GPs and nurses have not been able to visit patients at home. Also ambulances have cancelled all non-emergency journeys.

"This means that elderly, vulnerable people who are taken to surgeries for check-ups and operations or back home from such visits are no longer getting this service," central co-ordinator for communications, Laurence Knight, said.

"The roll-on from that is that beds will be blocked up in hospitals and operations will start to be cancelled. As staff are not able to get in then we are expecting to see a number of operations cancelled from today."

Knight said hospital trusts did not keep reserves of fuel -- excepting heating fuel for winter-time. Ambulances did keep reserves but they are already being used.

"Our priority is to ensure the best use of these resources and that means for the most urgent cases. But it is very difficult and if the protest continues it will certainly put lives at risk. As it goes on it will have a very serious effect."

British Automobile Association spokesman Mike Johnson said the services 3,600 patrolmen were reporting shortages nationwide.

"Initially shortages were due to blockaded refineries and fuel depots, but now panic-buying has exacerbated the problem because stations that would not normally have run out are being drained dry."

Johnson said some petrol station bosses were acting like "highwaymen" by charging high prices for fuel.

"It is daylight robbery in some cases -- blatant profiteering." He cited the case of one service station which had put its fuel price up from 79p to 1.99p a litre.

Food in shops would start running out next, Johnson said, because of the "just-in-time culture" of UK traders. He said large stocks on site -- of both fuel and food -- were a thing of the past as managers cut costs.

"To reduce overheads traders are supplied a little bit all the time so when the supplies stop suddenly there is no stock at all."

People who were stocking up on fuel at home were risking danger from "immolation." Fuel should not be stored in anything other than well-marked and suitable containers, he said.

Storing more than 15 litres of fuel required a licence and those without one risked a fine of £5,000 ($7,500).

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