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?

And why aren’t they in the DRC ministering to the sick? That’s how it works right? It’s reprehensible to be sitting on your arse when you could be helping someone worse off than yourself?

I’m sure someone has already said something similar as I’ve NRTWT but as someone working in the NHS right through this first wave in a London hospital, please STFU. It was horrific.

1. Doctors don't attend 999 calls. Paramedics attend 999 calls.
2. In the early days of COVID, we didn't know that it took out the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions. We had to assume that it could kill anyone.
3. An otherwise-healthy young person with COVID will give it to all the old people and disabled people they come across. Those "healthy young doctors" would have given it to everyone they worked with and every patient they saw.
4. I was working at a Russell Group university at the time and our final-year medical students were sent onto the wards as soon as they had done enough to pass their finals. They didn't actually do their entire last term of study because they were needed immediately. Doctors and nurses are not a resource that we can afford to lose so we tried to stop them from catching COVID.
5. At the same time, I was watching students sharing masks, ignoring social distancing rules, and stepping around the perspex screens placed to prevent droplet spread to talk to staff. If you want to be angry, be angry with the Govt and the idiots who put others in danger by ignoring the basic hygiene protocols.

Defensive much? To the point of ridicule. When you are criticising those people who are ministering to the sick in the DRC for not doing more, it is appropriate to ask what you yourself were doing. For the record I wasn’t in the NHS then. I didn’t criticise them then and it’s disgusting to hear it from those who did nothing. You pay taxes you say? So do the NHS staff. They paid them to go to work in shit conditions and potentially die as a result of their work. This country really needs to start appreciating the people who do important work because more and more are refusing to work for the over-privileged under the conditions offered.

They were unable to treat the sheer volume of people who needed support.
it’s very different.

I’m a paediatric nurse. We had absolutely nothing to do. All the elective surgery was cancelled. And most other patients stayed away. We did a lot of cleaning and an awful
lot of colouring. We were not needed on the adult side either.

When my neighbour had breathing difficulties (yes he had Covid) the NHS sent a fast response car and then an ambulance which took him to hospital. He did, very sadly, die in the ambulance. He MIGHT have been okay if his family hadn’t believed the BULLSHIT about the NHS not treating people and had called for help sooner.

GPs did stop treating people. Mine is still utterly shit. The hospitals and 999 service were under huge pressure but they didn’t stop working.

Same as schools… we didn’t stop working… I was in school daily… but saying “all schools closed” seems to suit the same narrative as OPs “the NHS closed” narrative.

I work for the NHS and we launched a new phone line service a week before lockdown. We were inundated with people who discovered they can’t live with someone they were locked down with, people who lost family and friends to covid, people under 20 becoming alcoholics. I worked in the community as well and rooms we could only have six people in and that included three staff, but there were queues outside of up to ten outside. We were taking temperatures, stopped providing a cuppa. I was terrified I would catch it when providing support for unwell people at home, I wasn’t the only one. Colleagues caught it and died or nearly died and we were prepped we might lose them. The things we heard and dealt with both on psych ward and on the phone will haunt me forever. I caught Covid on the ward I worked on in 2022 and I am now disabled. We didn’t stop or close, just worked differently.

They weren't out. They were sat at home...as I clearly stated.
Please read and digest posts properly before you post a ridiculous statement which demonstrates that you are factually incorrect.

JUST TO MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!!!

I agree with this, for the most part. And I don't believe it was an evil orchestration, sure.
However, cold, faceless bureaucracy, paired with short sighted, fanatical corporatism may can have worse effects than malice sometimes.

I remember, certainly. Do I have similar stories? No.

I was working in an intensive care unit.

Nobody avoided their responsibilities. Not one person. Not. One.

Most have ended up paying for their PTSD treatment themselves; I certainly did.

You were moaning at them for sitting at home and having barbecues. Another poster was moaning about ppl being out
You are now pissed because it proves that the public couldnt do right for doing wrong

How else do you think "they were sat at home having barbecues while we worked our asses off" reads?

Five years ago, the NHS shut down.

No it didn’t. We had a pandemic. The NHS was flat out and couldn’t treat everyone who needed medical treatment. Yes, people died. It was a horrible, traumatic time.

Hospitals were not overwhelmed. GP surgeries were, also, not overwhelmed. But they were refusing to treat people who were in need of clinical treatment.

Sorry but you are wrong. We were literally flying patients to other countries because we ran out of ICU beds. Patients died on covid wards because we didn’t have enough ICU ventilators. Patients died at home because we didn’t have enough ambulances- you forget that during Covid people still had heart attacks, asthma attacks, strokes, car accidents, industrial accidents,….Covid was another way to die on top of everything else and killed tens of thousands.

At the height of lockdown my DM, then aged 78, was sent to hospital by her GP for vaginal bleeding. She was seen quickly thankfully. But I remember that we all had to wear masks. I wasn't allowed on the ward with her where she was treated but I absolutely do remember walking past all the wards which were taped up with massive 'no entry - Covid infection control area' signs. It was very scary and I'm sure that they did it for the right reasons.

I have a very different memory. DH made redundant so I had to go to work with a 12 week old baby, pouring a full day of expressed milk down the sink in case I gave him covid from the ward. Coming home from 13 hours away from mu baby desperate to hug him but having to strip to my underwear at the front door and have a shower terrified that if i touched him I could make him unwell. Wasn't able to see my lovely grandmother for a year and by the time I got to see her she had advanced dementia and didn't know who I was.
The acuity of my patients doubled overnight. There was no HDU/ICU beds so people who were critically unwell had to stay in acute medicine. The day to day illness like diabetic keto acidois and heart attacks didnt stop so we still had the ususal sick patients in amongst covid. We weren't trained in NIV but had to do our best as there was no where for them to go. On top of this staffing was atrocious due to people getting sick so we were taking extra patients each shift and not only were patients unwell but they were lonely and scared and didn't have visitors so needed a lot more support. Corridor care began but no extra nursing staff so again adds to an already stretched ratio.

It sounds like you have had a pretty traumatic covid experience but I can assure you that the majority of us weren't having a laugh either.

again. my post, that you are using to accuse people of 'not doing right for doing wrong' was not about lockdown.

it was about AFTER lockdown when people SHOULD have been staying in IF THEY WERE SICK, and were instead going out and giving covid to everyone they met, you know, the bit in 2021 when people were still meant to be testing and staying IN if it was positive.

I also caught it again in 2022, and again in 2023, and now have permanent disability from it.

which is WHY i made the point that i do not want to 'remember' it because it HASNT GONE AWAY YET.