Five years ago, the NHS shut down. Does anyone else remember?

[Kennobi]

Because I do.

In fact I have several quite specific memories from that time. The time when we were all supposed to "stay the fuck at home", "protect our NHS" and read that fucking kitty O'Meara poem.

I shall share those memories with you here. Please add any similar.

1. My good work friend, a young man in his twenties, realised his flatmate had covid and was struggling to breathe. He dialled 999 and the operator talked him through how to find and use the nearest defibrillator, at the co op shop, half a mile from his house. No, they weren't sending an ambulance and yes he was required to activate a defibrillator, on remote instruction, for a woman who wasn't his wife, or sister, or child and as far as the NHS was concerned that was it, job done, they wouldn't be sending medics to an address where there was covid in case they caught it.

1. My cousin, a man in his fifties, caught covid. My auntie repeatedly rang for emergency assistance as his lips were turning blue, was told to monitor him each time, he died.

1. My best friend caught it, again struggling to breathe, they asked her can you breathe? No. Are your lips blue? Yes. Are you able to watch a TV programme for five minutes (ie basically are you conscious)? Yes. Ok fine you can maybe see a doctor tomorrow. Saw a GP in a car park, wearing a mask, who confirmed she wasn't dead, and sent her on her way. She now has long covid and it doesn't look like she'll ever get her life back.

It seems to me that at the time we most needed our health system it was unavailable to us.

Do others have similar stories?

The data did not stack up to a serious pandemic from very early on. Statistically very few people.diedcompared to those who caught covid and most died with not from covid

which is fine for a mutation of a known virus that the population will have some inherent immunity to. That wasn’t Covid though was? Covid, at the time, was completely new and no inherent immunity existed.

which is why that small percentage translated to huge numbers in such a small space of time.

One reassuring thing was when our local council recognised they weren't in a position to help people in our rural community so they handed ownership to the parish council.
A call went out for people to help with food and medicine collection/shopping & delivery. And for volunteers to help with 'social phone calls' for the isolated elderly.

We were inundated with offers of help. Our teenagers turned out in style 😍

@Kennobi Tories and Labour were happy enough to stress how ill and vulnerable disabled people were beween 2020 and 2022 when they were using them as tools to emotionally blackmail others to follow Covid rules and restrictions. Sent them sheilding letters. Now they want to cut their benefits.

They were fucking sick and disabled enough during Covid when it suited both main parties.

Like others, what I remember clearly was my best friend (a nurse) who had been put on a covid red ward sobbing down the phone to me during a five minute break because she was knackered and broken. She had 5 mins to talk to me before she had to pull herself together and go back on duty for more hours. She did that for months whilst isolated at home into 2 rooms so as not to risk infecting an elderly relative.

I remember finding a breast lump and thinking it was shitty timing because there was no way I was going to get seen. Only to have an apt to have it checked out at a nearest hospital come through almost immediately after reporting it to my GP. 2 weeks later I had the apt and they confirmed all was fine.

I remember a Dr taking the time to do some extra checks for my stepdad who was reporting a bit of tiredness at the time. Those checks included a quick prostate check which found an issue, which resulted in increasingly serious checks which diagnosed him with a very aggressive foorm of prostate cancer. Six months delay could have killed him. That Dr saved his life that day, by taking a bit of extra time with him.

I'm quite open to hearing complaints about our government at the time - because snogging staff in the cupboard and awarding lucrative contracts to mates is very clearly NOT 'doing their best'. But otherwise, I am personally sick of hearing complaints about what everyday, normal people did during that time. For the most part, most people did the best of what they thought was right during a time that was scary and unknown to them.

1. My DH was made redundant and spiralled into depression.
2. A dear friend was made redundant and took his own life.
3. My FIL died in a card home after infected people were moved there fro hospital.
4. My Aunt - see above different care home.
5. My DM developed agoraphobia and anorexia- terrified to go out and terrified food would run out.
6. My BIL had a nervous breakdown and quut his job.

Lesson learnt? I will never, ever, be a fool and fall for this again.

They need to get rid of the triple lock on pensions and cut down the pension costs instead, which are many magnitudes higher. But they won't because it will be too unpopular.

When pensioners get more money and benefits than people on benefits, yet you're saying that's the amount that people with no dependents need to live on, you can't also say that people on benefits need to survive on much less. Both those things can't be true.

Yeah Told everyone to stay at home then fucked off to Antigua

My dsis came out of retirement as an NHS nurse and worked in a vaccination centre for 7 months.

Thousands of recently retired NHS workers responded to the call. They didn't have to, they did it because they are brilliant. Grateful thanks to those who did.

I like many other Nurses worked all the way through COVID, was redeployed (and never went back to our normal role). We were most certainly seeing patients (Urgent Community Response Team) so your 3 examples don't sit with what I witnessed. Our biggest problem was getting a GP into a Nursing / Care home, one I visited had not had a GP in over 2 years, certifying the dead over the phone etc even 2 years after initial lockdown. Shameful and this was a huge city not a small village with barely any GPs.

Do you have the same advice for WinterBones?

Did he?? Was that in 2022? Late 2021?

I think i just forgot about that tbh

Who on earth would not remember COVID, ffs? What a nonsensical question.
It still enrages me how we treated our children by shutting down schools. We are yet to fully establish that the long term impact on their mental health arising from that foolish decision.

Well yes.
I have a friend who is an NHS nurse. They were working 18 hour shifts, not able to see friends and family, trying to use insufficient PPE whilst trying to stop people (including their colleagues and themself) from dying.
If the relevant people in the government had attended the WHO meetings (I may have the wrong organisation) about pandemics and how to try to manage them, and had put more funding into better resources (as opposed to selling contracts for equipment to mates), the original scenario might have been different.
My friend lost their grandmother, elderly aunt and many patients during covid. The stress ruined their marriage. They have long covid.
The NHS was put in a horrendous position.
Unfortunately healthcare provision was (and still is) something of a postcode lottery.

Good point.
OP is clearly on a mission here. These vicious attacks on the NHS are abhorrent.

I'm sorry that you've come to such false conclusions about the state of the NHS during this time, and how distressing that must be for you. The NHS was completely overwhelmed. Essentially the rationing of care that you described happened and people died because the NHS exceeded it's capacity. Many people don't seem to understand the grave importance of protecting the spread of COVID through hospital staff at a time when, for example, in my hospital the adult ICU quadrupled it's capacity by extending into theatres and paediatric staff were redirected to help to care for the enormous adult intake. Staff numbers didn't expand. Senior staff in anaesthetics/ICU worked countless hours of unpaid overtime and went without leave for months on end to provide an acceptable level of care. Many of them didn't live with their families for months on end. And some died from the virus they contracted from their patients. I'm sorry for what you went through but you need to have some respect.

My operation was cancelled thanks to the hysterical overreaction to Covid yet the staff at the hospital where I was meant to have my surgery had the time to post TikTok dances on social media. Overwhelmed my arse. I ended up being diagnosed with metastatic cancer.

We heard that people were sat at home having BBQ's and drinking all day whilst we worked our assess off, frightened to death that we would also become a death statistic @itsnotalwaysthateasy which is it please because @WinterBones is saying ppl shouldnt have gone out

So the public couldnt do right for doing wrong. I did say back in March 2020 that people wouldnt be satisfied whatever the public did. And yet again here we are and im getting proved right again. We have one poster moaning that people were sat at home and another poster saying people shouldnt have gone out

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!!!

Yes i do. Journalists and camera operators were allowed in to film while relatives were banned

I haven’t forgotten. I went to work as a consultant anaesthetist everyday. Everyday I wondered if this would be the day I caught it and got really ill or worse brought it home and made my loved ones ill.
Everyday I tried my best for the patients that needed my care. I bought my own respirator hood because none of the masks that we had locally fitted my face well and I didn’t want to leave my colleagues one person short.
All of this whilst we at a local level in anaesthetics worked out how it might be possible to triple our intensive care bed capacity, devised ways of working to carry on with the most urgent of cancer surgeries, colleagues with vulnerable relatives lived apart from them for long periods of time.

So yes I do remember, what did you do for the “venerated NHS” ?

What a stupid response.

Why shouldn't people reflect on the seismic events of 5 years ago?

I've had some thanks.

I'm currently very much in the middle of being diagnosed with a chronic illness courtesy of the 3 bouts of covid (not long covid) so it's a little raw rn.

https://order-order.com/2021/01/04/exclusive-piers-morgan-did-not-follow-the-governments-tier-3-covid-advice-when-he-went-on-christmas-caribbean-holiday/

I worked as a nurse throughout covid. It was awful and I break out in a cold sweat every time I think about that time. Hospitals were completely overwhelmed and it was a living nightmare to work in that environment.
I am sorry though for your experience and that of people you know.

Rubbish

Who was moaning about people sat at home? If their presence wasn’t critical to the functioning of society then they were exactly where they were meant to be.

all that was highlighted was the difference in societal expectations at the time based on profession. And not any profession you would have reasonably expected to suddenly become measurably more dangerous based on circumstances. I don’t think anyone goes into nursing or a supermarket job expecting to suddenly have their work deemed so necessary they should forgo the public safety advice to do it.

some professions lended themselves to easier circumstances, I don’t see why anybody should have to censor themselves and refrain from pointing out the disparity of experience.