On one ward, more than 50 per cent of staff, including the matron and ward manager, were found to have contracted the virus, it is understood.

Staff at the hospital have been warned not to speak to the press about continuing shortages of PPE, the source said.

Last month, one of the nurses in the picture told the Telegraph: “We had to use our initiative. We had no other choice or we could catch the virus ourselves.

“We need proper PPE kit now, or nurses and doctors are going to die. It’s as simple as that.

“We’re treating our own colleagues on the ward after they caught the virus from patients. How can that be right?

“There are so many younger people here on ventilation - many with asthma, or diabetes. They can’t stop coughing, they just cough and cough and cough and they can’t help it.

“But there’s little we can do apart from try to help them breathe. Sometimes the body just gives up, and they die. We can’t save them.

“And the worst part is that we can’t allow their relatives in to say goodbye.

“Even our own families don’t want us to come home in case we bring back the disease. What can we do?

“There’s too many Covid patients coming in to cope with. We put on our brave smiles but inside we’re terrified. I don’t know what will happen next.”

It comes after the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) suggested that the Government could be significantly underestimating the number of medics going off work due to coronavirus.

On Sunday, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, claimed that only 5.7 per cent of hospital doctors were off sick because of Covid-19, but an RCP survey of more than 2,500 frontline workers found the rate was actually 14.6 per cent.

Officials have said millions of pieces of kit have been distributed and a hotline has been established to help frontline staff get PPE where it is needed most.