- Serious doubts have been raised about the effectiveness of ventilators
- Ventilators are a standard treatment for the deadly lung infection pneumonia
- In New York, 80 per cent of ventilated patients failed to recover
After being rushed into hospital, they are knocked out by sedatives delivered through a throat tube as a ventilator mechanically pumps their lungs to send oxygen into their bodies.
It is a standard treatment for the deadly lung infection pneumonia, and one that was first used for Covid-19 patients in China, then in Europe and now here in Britain.
Yet, in a frank YouTube video, the New York casualty doctor Cameron Kyle-Sidell has broken ranks with the medical establishment and warns it is wrong to use ventilators in this way. 
medical personnel tends to a suspected COVID-19 patient attached to a ventilator inside a triage area at Santa Ana Hospital on April 14, 2020 in Manila, Philippines
He states emphatically: ‘I fear this misguided treatment will lead to a tremendous amount of harm in a very short time. Covid-19 is not a pneumonia and should not be treated as one.’ TOP ARTICLES4/5READ MOREAustralia’s highest court to judge cardinal’sabuse appeal
His video, which has been viewed around the world, is heralding a re-think concerning the treatment of severe cases of Covid-19. In particular, experts are now asking whether the best way of saving patients might be to saturate their blood with oxygen delivered through a mask without using a ventilator.
This is the approach reportedly used during Boris Johnson’s fight for life against the virus at London’s St Thomas’ Hospital intensive care unit. Before the pandemic took hold, Kyle-Sidell’s theory might have been dismissed as maverick.
