AIBU to refuse to be held prisoner at work?

[KitKat1985]

www.theargus.co.uk/news/18227689.fresh-suspected-coronavirus-case-nurses-mill-view-hospital-held-quarantine/?fbclid=IwAR3IShE3kLzzULNr8qVGu-31Bxf_n4YbOVlDL1mXfm6CgQAdK1-XtTXRFCo

I'm a nurse in this Trust. The nurses involved have apparently been refused the right to leave the building and have bee there since yesterday because they treated a patient with suspected coronavirus. This in my opinion is complete overkill and they are essentially holding the staff like prisoners. Even if they were unlucky enough to get coronavirus, they won't immediately get ill and be contagious anyway, so why not just let them go home (maybe with facemasks etc on) and quarantine them there?! There's no way anyone is keeping me from going home from work.

What I don’t understand is why it is still ‘suspected coronavirus’ I work in a smallish district general and this test result when required took hours so I can see how it might not be unreasonable to keep people back until you know one way or the other and if they need to get public health involved. It shouldn’t take overnight or days!! What is going on?

If it is a coronavirus case then a proper plan needs to be put in place with safeguards before people can go home, you can’t just say off you toddle and keep out of other people’s way. Getting the right people to sign off on a plan probably isn’t going to happen at 9pm at night.

I saw some pictures on the news of the Chinese government quarantining people against their will.

I am sure it was just for no good reason at all.

@kitkat85 I'd give up! They are just not going to listen to you!!

They've been whipped up by the media! Having HCPs locked in a hospital for at least 2 weeks isn't going to work! Ridiculous!

As you said self quarantine!

Some PPs suggestions you're stupid , quit being a nurse etc are just typical of mnet demographics.

Now if you'd said you were a consultant from London, it be a different story!!

Yup def if you're a nurse you shouldn't have children. Jesus Christ. Mumsnet is so mad sometimes!

So should nurses and doctors be quarantined after they come into contact with other infectious diseases?

Don't be so stupid ffs! This is actually crazy.

Honestly OP if I were you I'd be phoning in sick before I allowed myself to be in the position of being quarantined because the worlds gone fucking mental!

Ebola nurses weren't quarantined! People need to calm down.

@T0tallyFuckedUpFamily I'm hoping some common sense prevails before we reach that point. And as another nurse upthread said, her Trust had a suspected coronavirus case and the staff involved were just told to go home. Why the lack of consistency?

And you are missing the point. NHS staff are exposed to potentially serious and contagious illnesses ALL THE TIME. And do you know what? We use common sense and infection control skills and go home at the end of our shifts. This isn't different. It's just the media has whipped the public into such a frenzy that the NHS feels it 'has to be seen to act' but I don't think those involved have thought through the consequences of that decision.

Some PPs suggestions you're stupid , quit being a nurse etc are just typical of mnet demographics.

I think you’ll find some posters, myself included, worked for many years (decades) in the health service. Many of us also have children with SNs/autism, again me, but we are also realistic about expectations put upon us during times of crisis. 🤷‍♀️

@WhiteBadger Thank you. Do you know what you are right, I am giving up now and going to bed.

I give up. 🙄

I remember years ago an exercise run in a large Northern hospital testing the effect quarantining decisions made on a computer modelled pandemic. The most successful team had the lowest number of deaths by strictly quarantining staff, patients and visitors. The least successful team had a decimated society and huge numbers of deaths yet still claimed they had a moral victory because they respected people's wishes to leave the hospital to be with their families. You are the same kind of idiot

I work in healthcare and also hate the idea of being away from my family but I would sooner do that than infect them. My colleagues and I have already agreed that, if we are exposed, we would not go home

Ebola nurses weren't quarantined! People need to calm down.

a) Ebola wasn't in the UK.
b) the way Ebola is transmitted means its easier to contain by other methods alone. Quarantine isn't necessarily the most appropriate measure for a different disease

Perhaps OP could explain how their self quarantine would work? Are they going to literally stay locked up at home with their children for 2 weeks with out a single person entering or leaving their home. Have they 2 weeks food/medicine (+ everything needed) prepped?

Or are they planning to make the odd trip to the park, supermarket, library etc? And still expecting to be paid?

And if OPs children were infected with Covid-19 would they treat them at home or hypocritically expect NHS nurses to treat them in hospitals?

Nurses should be chained to their wards in times of DM-induced fear. This is realistic, a known way to stop disease spread, is 'duty to Queen & country' etc, and makes perfect sense of course.

I wonder how many of the suspected contact cases atm are health anxiety.

My acquaintance is a hypochondriac and went today to A&E with a running nose, convinced that he has coronavirus. He had also invented a colleague who returned from China so that he is listened to (well I just guess the colleague is invented, dont 100% know this - as a minimum he does not know whether they travelled to China or not, they just seem to be ethnically Asian).
I just hope the history of his attendance will speak for itself, and they won't quarantine anyone over it.

Wondering what happens if one of those nurses is a single mum using childminders with no family support system. Would they put their kids into care? 😱

Here’s the thing op:

They don’t know enough about the virus yet to be able to say at what point a person incubating it becomes infectious. Obviously not ‘2 seconds later’ (a bit childish suggesting that) but otherwise we’re in the dark.

I’m in the but it’s just flu camp, and yet you, within this very defence, then go on to list the consequences of trying to manage this, even when numbers are so small in the UK. Whichever way it goes, there’s a bit of a road ahead - either inconveniences to attempt to stop the spread, or come a pandemic as many HCP will be ill as MOP!

I’m not a media fan, and avoid as much news as I can because Brexit and Boris make me want to rip my throat out, but I am genuinely puzzled at the scale of government responses to ‘it’s just the flu’. The Chinese economy is already suffering and it’s only 42000ish infected, supposedly.

I think you’re in the wrong job if you can’t surmount this, because it will quite possibly happen several times, or colleagues will go sick and you’ll be required to do extended hours. You say people will stop coming to work - yes, that’s happened in China.

It’s like you really don’t get what’s going on. Or perhaps you know more than CDC, WHO etc.

You are contagious soon after infection, up to 2 weeks before symptoms show. That's the whole point.

YABU. And breathtakingly selfish.

Nurses should be chained to their wards in times of DM-induced fear. This is realistic, a known way to stop disease spread, is 'duty to Queen & country' etc, and makes perfect sense of course.

Except its now literally the law if you are asked to be quarantined and fail to comply with the terms of that quarantine!

But hell its just the Daily Mail saying this.

Just to add, you're a nurse? It isn't the flu - not even close!

I agree OP. They're full it. Current mortality rates do not suggest it's any worse a threat than current viruses in circulation. The general public is crap at maths but love a bit of fear mongering. Convenient distraction away from domestic issues. Get home, stay home. Remember Mumsnet people get a bit aggressive on here at the mention of spreading a cold, so this is well exciting for them. And thank you for looking after everyone every day. Nurses are heroes.

I'm a nurse and a single parent to a child with SENs, I agree with you op.

Putting nurses and medics on lock down like this will be a logistical nightmare and there will not be processes in place to support the staff or families affected.

It isn't the flu - not even close!

Well, it's not that far from flu but it's more like a bad cold but with the respiratory issues linked. Although flu causes that too and killed more than 60k people world wide last year. There's a vaccine for flu but still people choose to risk being a carrier. We don't quarantine staff dealing with highly infectious flu.

The New Scientist (hardly the DM) is reporting that If the virus isn’t halted, it could infect 60 per cent of the world’s population and kill one in 100 of those infected – around 50 million people

Does anyone on this thread realise that suspected cases of coronavirus who aren’t unwell are being tested in hospital and sent home to self isolate? If even the people we think could have it can go home why not the staff that have treated them??

I’ve been in healthcare for 19 years I believe this virus is a major concern for the Public health England & the world health organisation, I don’t think putting laws in to place and quarantining people is being taken lightly. This is very clearly not an average pandemic. So I think that we should trust in the procedures until we hear different.

Current mortality rates do not suggest it's any worse a threat than current viruses in circulation

No. Current official stats show that 19 percent of those with outcomes (die/recover) die. 19% !

Now it’s suspected by the WHO that this figure is incorrect and it’s more likely to be in the region of 2% because of the massive under reporting of cases but if that’s the case then there must be millions of cases.

So take your pick - massively high death rate or massively under reported so an overwhelming number of cases to deal with. Neither is good.

Imperial college study yesterday have said that they conclude with95% certainty that for every 200 cases there will be between 1 and 8 deaths. This is still incredibly high given the numbers of people involved. It means that if this becomes a pandemic affecting the uk then 60-70 percent of the uk gets infected and half a million people die.

So if you come into contact with someone suspected to have the virus you get quarantined. No exceptions and you’re not a special case who gets to stay at home with family just because you work in the NHS. The resources are not there to police people self isolating in multiple locations and you’ve already demonstrated that people can’t be trusted to make sensible decisions when it affects them.