Is there a Go Fund type page for ventilators?

[OhioOhioOhio]

If so can someone copy a link for me please?

Not sure paying for it is the issue, more about the manufacturing capacity

The government has said they will buy every ventilator anyone can make. Money is not the problem!

Agreed, it’s not the money, there are hardly any factories that can make them. It sounds like some manufacturers are trying to be creative and having a go at it, I’m sure the government will be delighted to pay them for it if they successfully make some

We are the 6th richest nation in the world... the government has ample money to buy ventilators. If it had not brought the NHS to its knees in the last 10 years we would be far far better equipped to deal with thiy

We dont need a GoFundMe page for this. The Government are going to pay for it.

Even if you get the ventilators how are you going to staff them? I’m a nurse with 20 years experience in very acute trauma wards but I couldn’t learn to nurse a ventilated patient.
It takes 6 months to a year to train nurses to look after these patients and you need a lot of support and education to get to an independent level.
I think the government saying they are going to buy all these ventilators is to make it seem like it’s doing something, IMO it’s too late we will have to make do with what equipment we already have.

"if it had not brought the NHS to its knees in the last 10 years we would be far far better equipped to deal with this"

And British industry. It's a disgrace that it's UK teams working in other countries on the vaccine, because we don't fund research.

People can’t post go fund me links on here-it’s against talk guidelines.

What’s wrong with posting in the coronavirus topic?

Problem isn't even manufacturing, it's having people with right skills to monitor & use them (!)
And beds to put them next to. And staff to monitor those beds.

Always comes back to lack of staff.

It’s not money it’s capacity and staff to use them. The government will pay for them.
We don’t need to Go Fund them.
Really enjoyed watching Jeremy Twunt grilling the NHS chiefs about NHS resources when he was the half wit that cut them all - they must have wanted to reach over the table and punch the f@cjer right in his patronising little gob.

We have spare ventilators. However we don’t have any spare bed spaces with the required Medical Air and Oxygen ports. And nurses trained to use them.

The ITU I work in has 35 staff vacancies. There’s a massive shortage in the skill set

Staffing an issue but it's a piece of medical apparatus that has to meet certain criteria of operation and standards. The pumps and electronics will have to be sourced or made. Is there any licensing involved? Just sourcing and making the on/off buttons can be contentious. If the item is made wrong and people die who takes the blame. Operator or manufacturers?

It’s the staff and training that’s the issue. Of course the goverment ought to pay for it - it’s their fault the NHS is in such a mess! Hopefully be a lesson learnt from this shitstorm.

Ventilators are no use without the staff or the beds to use them.

Ventilators are no use without the staff or the beds to use them

Or without the power, monitors and oxygen units to link them to - and without the actual oxygen and muscle-relaxing drugs and gasses which will also be in short supply.

Medical ventilators are complicated pieces of kit, manufactured by specialists to very high standards. The UK manufacturers produce a few hundred a year. Johnson and his mates are blustering when they claim that another 20,000 can be manufactured in just a short time. That would represent almost 4 times the current number in use - which would of course require 4 times the number of specialist nurses (training time 6-12 months) and 4 times the peripheral equipment (monitors etc) and 4 times the amount of oxygen, gasses and drugs.

If we all make it to the end of this sorry saga, one of the questions that needs to be asked of politicians is why do other countries have many more times the ventilators that the UK has (Germany has 5 times as many for a population that is only 25% larger)? And the population in general needs to understand that if they want a world class health service (or even one that is on a par with the other countries that the UK likes to compare itself with) then they're going to have to pay for it through higher taxes.

What everyone else said.

Having an adequate health service requires more than reactively throwing money at it when the disaster comes along, as if you were buying last-minute overpriced flowers from a petrol station. It is about planning ahead.

You can't just put people in ventilators and leave them there. You need specialist staff to operate those ventilators, and it doesn't matter how much money you throw around in the petrol station, they're not available last-minute.

We should have been investing in staff training consistently, and we should have been happy to build and fund more hospital capacity than we actually needed day to day, for the times when we did have more patients than usual.

Instead, we trimmed it to the bone. The staff: patient ratios are far too low in hospital wards, and good nurses have left in droves rather than work in UK conditions.

It takes 6.5 whole time equivalent nurses to staff one ICU bed.
Its a good 6 to 12 months before a fully qualified nurse is capable of being left alone without support to look after one of these patients.
A ventilator alone is not the issue. The main issue is staff with suitable experience.

For perspective. Italy has twice the ICU capacity per head of population than we do.

This really is one of the daftest things I have read
If you want to fundraise there are plenty of charities that are supporting poor and vulnerable people at the moment that are struggling
Mainly small local ones

What a nice thought. I don’t find it daft at all - I’m an ICU dr. We got more ventilators OK but getting the staff is much more difficult.

I think right now if you want to help I’d focus on donating to support people who are struggling. Food banks and so on.

Even just being a good member of the community is important right now.

Bless you.

"For perspective. Italy has twice the ICU capacity per head of population than we do."
And a much higher percentage of deaths than most countries it seems. Germany has the lowest percentage rate of deaths at the moment.

And you think if there was a different party in power the state of the economy would be good enough to have saved the NHS? The NHS isn't underfunded, I worked for them for years, it's just run abysmally by people who have no idea how to negotiate o tracts or spend money wisely.

If it had not brought the NHS to its knees in the last 10 years we would be far far better equipped to deal with thiy

Always room for a cheap shot! No country is already equipped to deal with this exceptional set of circumstances.

Ridiculous post

@formerbabe - But understandable, imo.