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.

It wouldn’t be practical to quarantine staff who’ve had contact with patients with flu or norovirus. These illnesses are already endemic, the hope is that by limiting the spread of Coronavirus they can stop it becoming endemic.

The actions of the Chinese government suggest they know it’s very serious. The numbers infected and the number of deaths is probably much higher than official reports say. They don’t put a city the size of London into quarantine for nothing. We don’t yet know the mortality rate because so many poor people are still very ill with it. We don’t know how many of them will recover and how many will die.

Ebola doesn’t spread so easily from person to person.

"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"

Because over the last few elections thats what people have voted for.

Tbh OP, you're a nurse, ie trained to help cure I'll people. You are not a microbiologist with many years experience studying the development, mutation and infection rate of disease, like they have at the WHO. I'll listen to those guys thanks.

Oh and there is a reason that quarantine is so severe at the start of a potential pandemic: it prevents a pandemic from happening. If you can be severe and starve the virus of new hosts asap then a pandemic doesn't happen (and Joe Bloggs can laugh at what they believe to be the "unwarranted hysteria" in the media). Once you reach a critical point, then it's too late and you just have to ride it out.

You lost me at glorified flu. Really struggling to believe a nurse would say that. This is both more infectious and many times more likely to kill than flu. It's not just killing people who have pre-existing medical conditions either.

@MaJoady

Just saw your username - another Steinbeck fan? 🙂

Are you a bornnbred Brightoner? Yeah, sounds like it. Something special, not.

OK, so I'm pretty terrified about this corona virus, and am in a high risk group, but I think OP deserves more sympathy than she is getting. She's clearly scared and highly anxious about her child with additional needs, and is working in a high risk profession for infection. I'm sure I would be freaking out if I was in her shoes.

However, I would not want to infect my kids so would not want to come home. I think the panic and seemingly knee jerk responses is because no one really knows what they are dealing with.

OP I hope everything is OK with you, and thankyou for the selfless job you perform.

What would happen if the person I sit next to at work got Covid19? Would we all be quarentined in the office? Genuine question. If that is the case I need to start making a list of people who could look after the kids and pets, and keep some kind of emergency supplies bag with me all the time.

The mortality rate is currently just a guess, and is hampered by the time lag between first symptoms and outcome (recovery or death) being weeks, and lots of new cases being reported in that time.

20% of cases are severe enough to require oxygen etc. As someone else stated upthread the outcomes of the cases at their conclusion, is currently 82% recovered 18% dead.

During SARS the WHO also estimated the mortality rate to be 2%. Afterwards when all the figures were collated, it was confirmed as 9.6%. This virus is 97% genetically the same as SARS.

These are all facts from sound scientific sources. The governments, and WHO etc, aren't wrong that if this is allowed to spread (and it's highly infectious), it could be extremely serious.

Quarantine, now just as it was in the Black Death, is an effective way to prevent spread. One village in Germany during that time closed their gates and set up a rotation of guards and didn't have one case. Obviously our lives are very much different to then, but quarantine is still our best tool until a vaccine or suitable antivirals are found. Of course hygiene as well.

Looks like we’re in a news drought

What are you smoking? In what world are we in a “news drought” without this novel virus?
The Trump situation
Brexit
The economic slump
A prince basically stepping down
To name but a few.

As a HCP, I of course would be worried about who would care for my family if I was quarantined m, of course. So I can understand that element of worry. But sadly OP, you like me, chose a role that exposes you to all manner of dangerous situations. It would be a dereliction of your duty to go against the advice of people and services who know far better than you, along with break with procedures you will have studied at university level.

Do you feel like you are able to continue nursing?

I can’t speak to whether or not the quarantine is warranted. I am not an epidemiologist.

I will say that the exact words op used are fairly funny. You can’t refuse to be quarantined. If you don’t cooperate, you will be arrested and then quarantined.

Op, if your home life is such that you can’t take this risk, you might have to make career choices. Believe me, I understand. My household could survive without me for a bit at this point, but there were times when that was not the case and me not coming home for whatever reason would have long-term consequences and complications.

I read this morning that there is concern about the official figures from china might be more accurate than they look on the basis that they are clearly not reflective of the reality of the situation. Anecdotally we know there are more than circa 40,000 cases and we also know that the Chinese have deliberately (and officially) changed the way they report and are no longer going to include those who test positive but are not showing symptoms (yet). We have also been told unofficially that many thousands of bodies are being cremated.

The suggestion is that they have however kept the extremely high death rate at an accurate level to minimise the criticism at a later stage that they didn't warn the world.

Obviously if this was the case it would be a catastrophic pandemic. In fact it would be one one justifying building hospitals in days, locking down major cities containing millions of people and welding shut the doors of apartment blocks so that people cannot leave.... The reality is though that we just don't know and are unlikely to know until this hits a different and more open country with full effect. That being the case, every possible precaution needs to be taken.

The UK isn't geared up to this. We are not compliant and are not used to being forced to follow rules - as this thread unfortunately shows.

YABU

Also YABU as a nurse to dismiss this virus in the way you have. Just goes to show the ignorance prevalent among many medical staff on this.

OP, you're a Nurse, not a Virologist, not a Scientist of any form. Let Public Health England and the WHO do their fucking jobs to try and protect the masses and stop throwing your uneducated 2p opinion in.

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

Good grief, I hope this isn't true?

You shouldn't be a nurse, your lack of respect for others is pathetic.

Some really vile attitudes towards nurses on this thread, like the one just above my post.

I’m really interested to see how the NHS will handle this if the virus breaks through here in big numbers. It can’t even cope with normal winter flu outbreaks, let alone manage if lots of staff get ill or have to be in semi permanent quarantine. Big LOL at all the parts on this thread telling Op to just quit her job then. Where do they think all the nurses are going to come from to take her place when we have massive nurse shortages in the UK generally and London in particular? Health workers have been treated terribly in pay and conditions and by the press and public for the last 10 years, don’t take for granted their willingness to put themselves and their families at risk if this breaks out.

Why do people - including supposed HCP - keep insisting this is "just a flu". Its not. Every year the most vulnerable people are vaccinated against flu, offering at least partial protection from developing flu. With this virus, everyone is open, including - especially - the most vulnerable. How is that comparable?

If you are actually a nurse I'd like to take the opportunity to remind you of your obligations under the nmc code of conduct:

19.3 keep to and promote recommended practice in relation to controlling and preventing infection

www.nmc.org.uk/standards/code/read-the-code-online/#fifth

You could potentially be suspended and/or lose your pin if this scenario is a reality for you and you choose to ignore the quarantine protocol.

Yeah I too am shocked at the attitude towards nurses trying to balance a family life with their profession. The OP was talking about self isolation, not just going about her life normally.

OP the best people to ask would be your employer and the Trust’s Infectious Diseases consultants what the policy would be.

As I have stated upthread, suspected cases who are not unwell are NOT being admitted overnight and quarantined in hospital, they are tested and sent home to self isolate either in their own transport or a special ambulance.

Self isolation must be much less of a drain on resources. Food could be dropped off at a house and this would cost far less than a negative pressure room in a hospital.

I know you are all scared but we need our HCPs more than ever now.

Absolutely. HCPs should be supported during what is a professionally difficult time, not told to quit their jobs!

Yeah I too am shocked at the attitude towards nurses trying to balance a family life with their profession. The OP was talking about self isolation, not just going about her life normally.

It's not a normal situation though.

This is entirely the point.

The nurses code of conduct highlights this, with a specific clause about infectious diseases.

This falls under emergency powers which includes draconian measures in the wider public interest and safety. The same as if there were an emergency situation such as a major natural disaster, wartime event or similar which threatened or had caused the functioning ability of civil agencies.

I'm not saying I am a fan of this. I am saying that the potential break down of law and order needs to be taken seriously.

A pandemic with a high death rate or high complication rate has the potential to cause this. Hence powers being put in place to prepare it getting that serious.

Ultimately if that's possible and PHE fear that, why would you want to take the risk of infecting your own children?

Hi all,
Thanks for the reports. We have had a look, however, and we do not believe that this poster is a troll.

It’s incredibly naive and laughable really to think that this country and its citizens are prepared or will be forced to adapt to the ‘draconian measures’ suggested. Who do you think will enforce this? We don’t live in communist China or North Korea. We have a large population used to autonomy and self direction with a tiny (and much depleted post austerity) police, armed forces and healthcare workforce. We couldn’t even cope with running out of fuel or KFC!!! Police can’t manage teenage knife crime or home burglaries. To expect them to enforce mass quarantine or corral errant nurses into work is laughable.

I wouldn’t underestimate the number of lower paid healthcare workers (and this includes band 5 nurses who make up the majority of the nurse workforce and practically all of ward nurses, band 2-4 support staff who are on crap pay) who might quit their jobs if it came to protecting their families from exposure. The wages are pitiful and of course we live in a country of nearly total employment so people are not without alternative employment. Not sure I would turn up to look after a chippy and ungrateful population and government while putting my own family at risk in doing so. What will stop people just calling in sick?

Ward beds should run at no more than 80% occupancy. I can’t recall a day in recent years where London hospitals were not running at nearly 100% occupancy, even in summer. Who is going to look after all these sick and / or quarantined individuals and where are we going to put them?

The time to act quickly has passed and even when the risk was known we still had several flights from Wuhan landing every day. Still there are lots of Chinese coming and going. Heaven help we prioritise the health of our population over the Chinese’s right to buy cheap designer handbags from Bicester.

I’m interested to hear whether the nurses quarantined out of their homes will be on 24hr/day pay while doing so. Who is going to look after dependents if people don’t have family? Hardly lots of space in foster families!

WHY would anyone think Op is a troll? The problem with basing all your arguments on what happens in disaster movies is that said movies never contain real practicalities. Who does look after the hero’s kids or feeds the family and pets while he/she buggers off to save the world?