There are patients who stay with you for life. Moments of indelible tragedy when healthcare reaches its limits. Giving chest compressions to Adam*, a boy rushed in from home who had stopped breathing, is one of those junctures.
Just two days prior, during an admission for wheeze, Adam’s worried parents had reported that the damp in their private-rented home was contributing to his symptoms. Now, here he was, despite the best efforts of staff, lying motionless on the trolley in front of me, his body in a state of physiological chaos, his life support systems in irretrievable failure.
Adam’s untimely death wasn’t just caused by illness – it was the result of conditions that made illness inevitable; the daily violence shaping the lives of millions of children and young people entangled in an unforgiving private rented sector across the UK.
