bed blockers adding to the lack of hospital beds

[newcovidisolations]

My mum was medically discharged to leave hospital into rehab (following a stroke) well over a month ago but due to no rehab beds being available she is still taking a hospital bed from someone who needs to be admitted from a&e. She has now tested positive for covid and despite no symptoms at all is now taking a private room on the ward for 7 days as they insist she isolates.

Over 3 weeks ago I rang every private rehab within 50 miles and none could assess her to see if she could transfer until 5th Jan. Despite fees of over £2k per week with extra charges for all physio.

She could possibly have regained mobility with daily physio in rehab had she been discharged weeks ago whereas now she could have far more care needs for the rest of her life.

The system appears broken to me and could affect any one of us and I cant understand the lack of protests. Any of us could need the hospital bed not just the elderly. Her ward is not just used for strokes.

If you start a thread on here about how obesity is crippling the NHS - and therefore directly affecting all of us - you’ll just be met with screams of ‘goady fucker’. They feel entitled to go through life without having poor decisions that impact others ever questioned.

I think that's harsh. Socio economic factors impact health eg obesity & smoking etc

@bibbif we are already struggling to find workers for so many industries including care. The reason isn't taxation, it is poor pay and working conditions, rubbish pensions, astronomical rents/soaring mortgage costs, huge rises in inflation meaning everything else has shot up in price, expensive childcare etc.

@BirmaBrite and you think increasing their tax will improve things?

we never recovers from 08 & the QE that inflated assets whilst wages went backwards has fucked things

I favour a wealth & land tax. Care in the home should also be means tested to include house value.

Why are free prescriptions over 60 not means tested?
Why isn't attendance allowance means tested?
Why are pensioners who still work not paying NI?

PP's have mentioned that we're living longer but in poorer health. I do think that people need to take more responsibility for their health. Should we accept people retiring in their 60s and then living on a cocktail of statins, steroids and other drugs for 30 years? An elderly relative in her 80s takes 7 different drugs a day, she doesn't know what they are for and we don't either. She's had multiple admissions to hospital and has this idea that she needs a operation, she doesn't, she's old and has multiple conditions that come with age.

As a society we all need to look after our health properly, make good long term decisions and learn to solve our own problems rather than relying on others to do it for us
agree, I am very into fitness & healthy eating, but I know very very few other people who are like me.
As far as I can see most people shun physical excerption, society is geared towards cars, there are few places to cycle safely, runners have to contend with the dog problem, food manufacturers tempt people at every turn....
Doesnt bother me, I do what I do regardless, but most people appear unable to resist the lure of comfort and comfort eating....how to incentivize them?

Totally agree . I had POA for my parents and had to deal with everything . It was stressful and time consuming .they literally could not cope

YES, but all the wealthy people who make the rules have their wealth tied up in these things, they wont willingly take a hit, they hold all the power....how to make them give it up?

We need to have a sensible look at euthanasia for certain cases. I live in the Netherlands and its legal here, and I don't hear of it being abused. If someone has dementia and multiple health issues, with no quality of life, why prolong their agony? Same with patients who are brain dead, what is the benefit of keeping them alive? Life is not just about being kept alive, ita about having a life worth living. I am definitely choosing it as an option if I have dementia or a painful, chronic illness with no hope of recovery. I don't want to live with extreme pain, no quality of life, and burden my husband or kids. Yet if you mention euthanasia people accuse you if being a granny killer in the UK. It should be an option you can choose, in the same way that you can choose to donate your body after death.

@Soothsayer1 the truly wealthy will have ways around it but there is huge intergenerational inequality in terms of wealth & "burden" on the taxpayers. Bring CGT in line with income. I'd abolish council tax & stamp duty & just have one property/land tax.

@SommerTen Thanks for explaining your tasks. That is what I see but with far worse staff ratio. What should the ratio be for that level of care with acute stroke ward and what is minimum?

The NHS defines ‘medically fit for discharge’ as alive - not necessarily with a functional body or brain. That’s the catch.

A lot of people deemed ‘medically fit’ need 24/7 nursing, medicating, feeding, cleaning and nappy-changing. For 15 years. That’s before you start any rehab, let alone treatment.

In no universe can this be done in the community or at home eg a standard flat or house - hoists can be tricky, for instance, cos the old are heavy but fragile. Nor can the 24/7 shift be done by untrained families who need education and jobs, and to raise the grandchildren. Institutions are the best bet.

Dependent old age can last 25 years. Society can’t cope, so it’s no wonder the NHS doesn’t.

The current generation of dependent elders are sitting pretty, believe it or not - house price inflation means they’ve got huge cash reserves to buy care. This impoverishes their DC and DGC who end up less educated and renting, which we see now.

But what happens to the next gen? Low-paid renters don’t have a spare million for care.

How do we cope?

And, whisper it, how much is too much to ask from other people for your care?

Yes, because these types of wards are FAR more expensive to run than sending people to step down beds in, arguably more comfortable, residential and nursing homes.

But, now the residential and nursing homes are full and unable to maintain well trained, well paid staff. So, people are stuck in hospital again. It's a tragedy for every individual in that situation but convalescence wards are not the solution.

Absolutely they will and for those care workers it's the right decision for them.

We need to pay our care workers appropriately for the work they do. Such low wages are disgraceful.

sounds good to me I'll vote for you!

Dependent old age can last 25 years. Society can’t cope, so it’s no wonder the NHS doesn’t
we will end up a society of robots tending to bedbound elderly husks....or is that the plot of some film I watched while off my face on shrooms?

This thread has made me so sad.

I’m sorry OP for what you’re going through with your mum.

So many people are ready to euthanise anyone they deem have a poor quality of life. But who decides that?

Medical advances have meant more premature babies survive but many have serious disabilities. Would being doubly incontinent, unable to walk or talk, fed through a tube and daily seizures mean they should be euthanised?

I’ve had over 20 years with a child who is severely disabled, however I would like to think he has a great quality of life and can still receive medical treatment.

If euthanasia becomes common place for older people, how long before doctors start deciding to include disabled or vulnerable people? As has already been mentioned, the figures are shocking of how many people with learning disabilities died during covid when doctors made up DNR orders.

@Anewuser but do you acknowledge that in some cases it is actually cruel to drag out people’s lives for another few years when they’re greatly suffering? And that we shouldn’t let that happen to assuage our own consciences? It’s interesting about premature babies, I’m not sure what the cut off should be there - it would depend on the likely prognosis for the gestation. If it was likely that they would suffer lifelong disabilities then maybe it is unethical to invasively treat them for months.

The point people are making is that these people don’t necessarily have to stay on the ward, many could be discharged with care, either residential or at home, but they are stuck in the ward without much individual care, and I mean that in the sense of holistic care. Just wait until you get nearer your 70s and 80s. It’s not so old after all and why shouldn’t people be given the chance to continue their lives, or at least be supported with good palliative care when their lives are coming to an end? Who is to say this person’s life or that person’s life isn’t worth living? Not you or the doctors. You are on very sticky ground with your post.

What if they say their own life isn’t worth living? Should people be able to choose or do you choose for them according to what you’re ‘comfortable’ with?

It is sad. Desperately sad. Realising that a lot of the very elderly are horrifying to see and more horrifying to be is tragic.

It’s so sad that that medicine can keep people ‘alive’ but only in the sense of ‘not dead’ for too many people. No treatment for fear, pain and daily misery of living in a broken mind and a worn out body of an Alzheimer’s patient, for instance.

I’ve seen too many people blasted by the terror and pain of dementia to think relentlessly preventing their release is morally wrong.

@Cuppasoupmonster I can’t comment on someone’s life being dragged out. I’m from a big family and whilst I’ve watched loved ones die, thankfully they’ve received good palliative care.

I’m not sure any doctor can give a prognosis for a premature baby’s future so gestation times are useless.

I’m sure they can. They just need to collate data for the outcomes of babies born at 24/25/26 weeks, and see what quality of life they live as older children and adults.

Almost nobody on the thread is talking about euthanizing people and nobody is talking about euthanizing people against their will, so can we stop with the ridiculous hysteria about it. What some posters are talking about is not continuing to aggressively treat medical conditions in the very elderly with poor life quality. This is already done anyway, CPR for example, very rarely performed on a 90 year old. There's nothing wrong with questioning the ethics of prescribing antibiotics to treat a chest infection in a bed bound 95 year old with dementia.

@bibbif you are correct that the decline is going to be horrendous as the baby boomers age, I don't think it's right, but I don't think now there is the political will or the manpower capacity to do much about it, especially as it is seen by planners as a "temporary " problem demographically.

Even before Brexit rising living conditions in Eastern Europe meant a reduction in the numbers of people wanting to work in the uk and most of Europe has its own aging population problem.

We could recruit from poorer non eu countries, but there is a moral issue there. Do we have the right to strip poor countries of their young qualified staff? Countries with limited healthcare for their own population?