AIBU to get a bit fucked off at having to protect the NHS?

[Santaclauswhosthat]

This is a healthcare system I've paid into all my life. I don't think everyone who works in it is a hero and the vast majority of them aren't underpaid. It's ranked 16th in the world and has the worst cancer outcomes for any developed country. It's not very good. Nonetheless it's the only healthcare system open to me right now. But I can't access it. My operation had been cancelled and I can't get a consultant appointment. The GPs aren't seeing patients face to face. I've already had one tumour removed that was on the turn. I'm worried that I may have another. I have no way of finding out if this is the case. A family member has already died of covid 19 after being denied treatment for three days during which repeated calls to the ambulance service were made whereupon his mother was told she should only ring again if his lips turned blue. He is dead. Right now. The NHS didn't protect him. It isn't protecting me either. What is the point of the NHS, exactly? Most clinics are closed or running at half mast. GPs aren't seeing anyone. NHS staff get shopping hours and free food and fuck knows what else and we are all dying protecting them.

I hear you OP. So sad for your losses. Apart from staff on Covid Wards many are very very quiet and being paid incentives to work like double time for a GP receptionist and a £150 bonus per shift for a paramedic where I am.

Yanbu. My experience of the NHS has been shit for the most part. They missed my auntie's ovarian cancer and she died; they fobbed me off when my one year old had sepsis and he nearly died; they completely ignored me when I was in labour, telling them there was a problem, and I ended up with sepsis and so did my son.

There are lots of lovely doctors, nurses and HCA but people fetishize it in this country. It is shockingly badly run, and not just because it is underfunded which is the always used excuse.

@packetandtripe : my husband found a lump recently. After a couple of days, he emailed the surgery. A GP phoned him back later that day (Friday) and, after a phone consultation, has referred him for a scan.

Scans are still taking place in our local cottage hospital, as are blood tests. The GP doesn't need to see someone in order to refer them to those. They just need to agree that they need to be done and to complete the necessary paperwork.

Guylan yep - in Germany we pay 15.5% of our pre tax income just for the compulsory state health insurance (nobody should be without healthcare as children are included free with a parent and anyone in receipt of benefits paid for by the government...)

Unfortunately, looking at the last election the NHS is the holy grail and centre of political attention. No one is allowed to criticise it but as other posts have identified, many healthcare systems elsewhere are far better. France, Germany etc. Australia....my friends son lives there and she visited and needed an operation. She was amazed at how quick it was and the standard of healthcare. She was also prescribed drugs not available in the U.K. as too expensive.

I think the Govt is using us, the public, praising the NHS to distract from the fact that they have run it down to the bone in the last 10 years.
This!!!!
And yet you all clap like muppets.
Everyone NHS I know is waiting, waiting for the "heroes " crap to be over and the blame to start.
Well done OP you are ahead of the game.

People like you really anger be. Self centered. I was just reading the biography of all nhs staff that have lost their lives to Covid19, the vast majority in the front line, some very young. People who will be massively missed by their family but helped others so they can spend more time with theirs.

What are you doing to save people's lives? And no the nhs is not ranked 16 in the world, in some studies, it is ranked first!

packet and tripe everything you say can't happen without a face to face consultation/examination is happening at my surgery. I personally saw about forty patients last week, including those for blood tests.
As other staff are off sick we are all picking up the slack of each other's work. GP's mucking in too. There are also home visits to care homes and to those dying at home to maintain too. We can fill nine hours very easily.
Practice nurse.

And just to add, you seem to have lost perspective that we are in a crisis that nobody can control.

This attitude that higher powers should have all the answers and be able to do miracles to look after everyone because everyone is special.

Well we are not special or precious, i'm not, you're not, and no care workers owe us to save us. They do a job but like you and I they go home caring about their family members. Yet they don't have the option to isolate and put their loved ones first.

I really can't get over the nastiness and selfishness of your post and that so many people agree with it. What a nation of selfish, self-focused, self-indulgent and entitled nation we are! Very depressing.

I’m an nhs nurse, have been for 21 years. I’m no hero, but I do take exception to your op. Yes you’re having a shit time but to band all NHS workers together into your slating just isn’t fair nor truthful. You seriously think a free Easter egg and a chance to shop at a different time to others makes up for the FACT we are still working / risking our lives to nurse people. I was redeployed, I do what I’m told so I still have a job, I’m not a decision maker just a cog in a big wheel. Directing your anger in a blanket statement is shit.

Oh well off to put my uniform on for another 10 hour day.....have a good Sunday all.

I know exactly what you mean OP, I've just had a close family member die after the hospital and GP refused to have her admitted because of covid, she was ill with something else and would normally have been kept in. She had limited time left but the lack of care means she's died sooner than she would have, and during lockdown so her children can't go out and see their friends and I can't go and see my parents.

Personally, I'm finding the folk on my social media who seemingly want the lockdown to go on forever extremely grating - they seem to be so frightened of covid and so comforted by the "stay at home to save lives" message that they can't grasp that people are and will have their lifetime shorted as lockdown collateral, and that this was only ever meant to be a short term policy which has to loosen.

And no the nhs is not ranked 16 in the world, in some studies, it is ranked first!

Which study was it ranked first? Possibly for the fantastic work the healthcare staff do depsite eroding budgets and ridiculous red tape, I can't imagine what else.

I find it strange that supermarket workers ,bin men ,bus drivers ,ect all keep working ,yet consultants,don’t ,operations cancelled ...my friend has cancer and her cemo has been stopped .
Why not separate the patients with crono virus in different hospitals so some operations can continue

And no the nhs is not ranked 16 in the world, in some studies, it is ranked first!

🤔 1st?? I would like to see which studies are claiming this before I believe it.

Just to answer a question above about what GP are doing for 9 hours, well in our practice we are seeing covid patients to be triaged after they have called 999 and they get ambulanced to us and they are seen so they can either be sent to hospital or to see if they can be treated from home. They are also still having the same amount of calls from regular patients and nurses are trying to get through calling all of our vulnerable patients whilst still seeing urgent patients.

Any way it's not fair to be cross at the whole NHS you need to direct that anger towards higher management and government.

Any one remember the outrage that labour was going to increase higher earners tax?! It was minimal too but people wont pay for the services they rely on.

@ishouldnotsayit
GPs aren’t avoiding face to face where possible because they think they’re too important. Though I wouldn’t be much use to patients if I’m dead.
But in a normal day I see more than 30 face to face patients. Given I could be asymptomatic and shedding the virus for days, even weeks, that’s a lot of vulnerable people I’d be putting at risk.
I’m still seeing patients face to face - just not as many as before.

OP, your complaints are not without foundation. My dad, who has cancer but is managed as a chronic, not terminal disease, also needs open heart surgery. Desperately. But his teeth are in a state and he was told to get a hygienist to clean them, to prevent bacteria getting into his body. All the dental surgeries in his area are closed and the dentists at hospital won't help. So the pre-admission nurse has repeatedly asked on the phone, Mr Heimdall, have you seen a hygienist yet? And my dad says no because they are all furloughed etc. He also needs a cataract op but that been cancelled indefinitely. My dad is 73. He is getting slower, and slower, and more depressed stuck at home. I really worry about him.

The NHS is the best solution to meeting healthcare needs for most people. Having said that, it's been turned into a bit of a cult by some. It's deeply flawed, it's continuously underfunded, and some staff are grossly underpaid. Why charities are having to prop it up it beyond my understanding. I would pay more NI if I knew the NHS would get all of it. I still prefer it to the US system but it doesn't deserve it's "holy cow" status as a PP has put it.

I am sorry for your loss, and all the upheaval you are experiencing. You need to shout at the world, I absolutely understand. I hope you have people irl to support you.

Have to laugh too at those who believe healthcare is sooooo much better elsewhere where just about every country in this world will complain about their own system, usually the exact same complaints. Have you lived abroad recently, do you follow foreign news? I bet not.

The main reason the nhs is struggling is the lack of nurses and doctors. Young people don't want to train to become nurses. Low pay, high expectations, and worse members of the public taking them for granted, showing no appreciation for what they do and think they are owed the care they receive for conditions that often their own doing.

It is the decisions of those high up and the government not the actual nhs workers themselves. Having said that I am a little sick of this whole worship of every single nhs worker, regardless of what they do. My partner is a supervisor in a supermarket, where they have a nhs hour but the rest of the time they do not let a nhs worker to the front of the queue. That’s the head office decision, my partner has received a lot of abuse from nhs staff who want to cut the queue, one man kicked off, shouting and swearing and spitting at staff members but god forbid we say anything slightly negative about anyone who works for the nhs

I am sorry op you are going through this, I do worry about all the people now not getting care because everything has been diverted to dealing with Coronavirus.

I can't get my daughter seen because the doctors at my surgery are too important to risk themselves by doing face to face appointments

I don't agree with all the hero stuff. But GPs are seeing patients face to face. A number of us have died as a result. It's pretty offensive to tell us we're cowards when we are one of the highest risk groups for dying of Covid.

I have many staff who are single parents, so worried about dying and leaving their children without care; I have BAME staff who know they are at high risk of dying, but who come to work anyway. They could easily fake sickness or a need to self-isolate, to get out of work, but they come to work anyway, putting their lives and their families at risk, to look after ungrateful twunts like you.

GPs are trying to minimise the number of patients we see. That does help to protect us, but it also protects patients. The group of people most likely to have Covid at the moment is HCPs. 40% of people with Covid have no symptoms. Many of us will be infected but not know it. If we see patients face to face when not absolutely necessary, we put them at risk, as well as ourselves. Your DD is much more likely to catch Covid from a GP than a GP is to catch Covid from her. But, sure, carry on with your ignorant bile. It's just what we need at the moment

It is in the news today that in London the criteria of taking cover patients in to the hospital has been changed as the death rate was so high. Doesn't inspire confidence.

I've had bad experiences and good with them in the past- they saved my life with urgent surgery but they also missed the original condition which could have saved me from it.

They let me down when 2 year old had pneumonia, not admitting him till his sats were really low and then put him on oxygen, took days to do a simple X ray to diagnose him, so all this current situation brings back memories of that.

In Times today-

Take more coronavirus patients to hospital, paramedics told
A change in London’s NHS guidance has added to fears patients have been taken to hospital too late to save their lives

The NHS in London has altered its official guidance to lower the threshold at which paramedics take suspected coronavirus patients to hospital.

London Ambulance Service (LAS) has changed how it uses a scorecard called News2, which helps assess whether callers to 999 are at risk of deteriorating.

The disclosure is likely to prompt questions over whether some Covid-19 patients became seriously unwell or died because they were not taken to hospital before the guidance changed.

News2 allocates a score to vital signs including breathing rate, oxygen saturation, temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate and level of consciousness. Originally a score of five indicated a need for hourly monitoring.

From March 12 paramedics in the capital were told that suspected Covid-19 patients scoring as high as six might not need to be hospitalised.

The guidance was then changed on April 10 to advise that people scoring between three and five should be taken in for assessment.

LAS declined to say whether the change had been influenced by concerns that patients might have become seriously ill or died.

I think given your situation every single person would also be angry, and it just shows this plight affects many and things need to change.

What are you doing to save people's lives?

Excellent question. I'm sure everyone criticising the NHS on here is doing voluntary work that puts their lives at as much risk as HCPs.

Over 100 HCPs dead, and still it's not enough for you.

I understand your frustration OP. I have a family member who cannot receive their chemotherapy for the time being which is a massive concern to all of us since that is the only thing stopping their cancer from progressing.

However I think your anger is misplaced. The NHS do everything they can. The problem is that the Govt have been underfunding them for years. They are overworked, understaffed, underpaid and underfunded. You can see from that Hospital programme how difficult it is to get things done in our healthcare system. The NHS don’t want to deprive people of treatment, but they are so under resourced that there is little they can do anymore.