Relatives of the British physicist Stephen Hawking donated his ventilator to a hospital in the face of the corona pandemic. The device of her father, who died in 2018, was donated to the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, said Hawking’s daughter Lucy on Wednesday.
There the physicist, who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), had been treated again and again. “For my father as a respiratory patient, the Royal Papworth was incredibly important and it helped him through some difficult times,” explained Lucy Hawking. In the hospital that can Ventilator now “stand on the front line against the Covid 19 epidemic” and help “some of our old friends there”.
Hawking was in a wheelchair for most of his life, relying on a voice computer. The brilliant scientist received part of his essential equipment from the British health service NHS. This was returned after his death, said his daughter. The now donated Ventilator but her father bought it at his own expense.
The head of respiratory medicine at the Royal Papworth, Mike Davies, thanked for the donation from Hawking’s family. “We are very busy taking care of life-threatening Covid-19 patients, and the support we receive from patients, their families, and the local community is very important,” said the doctor. Alone in Great Britain To date, more than 17,300 people have died of covid-19 lung disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Stephen Hawking had died on March 14, 2018 at the age of 76. He became known to a wide audience through his bestseller “A Brief History of Time”, published in 1988, in which he explained the nature of the universe to a non-scientific audience.
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