For medical staff - is your hospital a war zone?

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I am hearing the contrary to the media reports, many hospitals are empty in the UK - is that the case?

TabbyMumz what is your agenda ? What are you trying to prove ?

The so called spare capacity in intensive care is misleading and frankly I wish politicians and others knew better. Every single intensive care unit has created new beds - using theatres, recovery areas and other parts of the hospital where we can plug in ventilators (often anaesthetic machines rather than intensive care ventilators). In my hospital we currently have double the beds we usually have for intensive care patients and at one stage had three times that to cope with the number of critically ill patients we had.

Intensive care is running at massively above its normal capacity and we have one ITU nurse overseeing the care of usually 3-4 patients with non-ITU nurses doing the one to one nursing. It is getting better very slowly but it has been a hellish few weeks for those of us that work there and everyone is exhausted. And preparing for more cases as lockdown is lifted.

@TabbyMumz no think thinks they are a saint or a hero. Many of us are deeply scarred already by what we have seen and experienced in the last month so maybe have some compassion

Hear hear countbackfromten If I could like your comnent I would !

I was thinking back to those bits of video footage we saw from hospitals in China back in January, which looked like war zones. It doesn't seem as though we've had scenes like that here?
So, are we better prepared or organised? Or did they have it worse? Yet their "official" stats indicate a much lower death toll overall.

"Bertoldbrecht

TabbyMumzwhat is your agenda ? What are you trying to prove ?"

That's a bit of a weird comment?! Just taking part in a thread?!

"TabbyMumzno think thinks they are a saint or a hero."
Not been on facebook much? It's all over facebook, pictures of nurses with angel wings and halo's. Allowing people with NHS badges or uniform to the front of shopping queues etc etc.

You make no positive contribution to the thread, just snarky comments about nurses...that's weird in my book. Everybody knows all we've done is twiddle
our thumbs, make stupid videos and queue jump so hardly a new observation !

Get a life tabby or get off social media if it offends you. I'm certainly not
posting sentimental rubbish like that and don't know anyone who is.

My neighbor works in the hospital and says its empty too

Bertoldbrect...you are behaving like a bully. I have every right to take part in threads that's what threads are for, debate. You arent the thread police, with the right to bully people and say they arent making a positive contribution so get off the thread. The world is full of people with different opinions to you.
MN has gone through various phases since lockdown. People talking about how mad busy hospitals are..to actually a lot of wards are closed. That's how knowledge gets through, people contributing on threads with what they know or have heard. So if I want to contribute, I will. We dont need people accusing others of "having an agenda". What a silly thing to say!!

"Get a life tabby or get off social media if it offends you. I'm certainly not
posting sentimental rubbish like that and don't know anyone who is."
It doesnt offend me? How weird? It must offend you,?

"was thinking back to those bits of video footage we saw from hospitals in China back in January, which looked like war zones."
We saw them build their hospital in weeks, but not sure they showed video footage of it full? And think they have reported low numbers of deaths. Not sure of the authenticity of that though.

I didn't mean video footage of the hospitals they built, but those crowded corridors in "normal" hospitals, with bodies on the floor covered with blankets/coats. Absolute chaos.

Similarly, there was lots of footage from Italy, with medics on camera beside themselves with exhaustion and stress, pleading with us to take it seriously as that was coming our way in a fortnight. Haven't seen similar scenes broadcast here much.

@Bertoldbrecht I hope you are ok. I’m an ITU doctor and my personal heroes are the incredible nurses I have worked with during this time (and before this!).

OP, can you link to a specific media report?

"I didn't mean video footage of the hospitals they built, but those crowded corridors in "normal" hospitals, with bodies on the floor covered with blankets/coats. Absolute chaos."
Oh blimey, I missed that. I saw the videos of people being dragged out their houses screaming, and put in the back of very small Van's.

The large teaching hospital I work at was very busy a few weeks ago preparing for cases. The ICU capacity was increased and that took a lot of effort to achieve. As many departments as possible have been taken off site to free up space, and more importantly prevent transmission to none COVID patients. We haven’t been too badly hit yet so there has been spare capacity. Next move is to find a way of keeping COVID capacity and getting back to business as usual in the longer term. The hard work has only just started.

Allowing people with NHS badges or uniform to the front of shopping queues etc etc

Take that up with the supermarkets if you have a problem with that, as for the wide eyed innocent "oh I've got every right to make a contribution" line pull the other one, you've clearly got some sort of resentment towards nurses and or the NHS.

I'm in accident and emergency and it's very very quiet. Maybe 20 ambulances (non covid) and 3 or 4 walk ins a night.

ITU full, COVID has a slow recovery and they're struggling to step patients down.

Some specialities are shut and their staff have been redeployed to support staffing gaps left where staff are shielding--many of the permanent staff on my ward are shielding, so even with redeployments we're struggling to patch together a safe rota, especially as our patients are more complex, more dependent, and not our usual speciality. Redeployments are much appreciated but these staff need a huge amount of support and oversight, so even a 'fully staffed' day looks very different than it did 3 months ago.

We are struggling. My team is normally very cheerful and resilient, but we are on the floor at the moment.

Every hospital and every unit will look different, though.

I'm not a medic but aren't we leaving people at home a lot longer (ie until their lips are blue?). Italy tried to help everyone who needed help. I suspect the staff are working hard and appreciate everything they are doing but too many people are being left at home to die hence why we are probably not seeing the images as other countries are broadcasting.

The media are the ones reporting that the Nightingale in empty. The government is asking people not to overrun the NHS. The media is just reporting info as it comes in.

Why Brits feel the need to blame 'the media' for every bloody thing is annoying. If they shut up shop you wouldn't know anything at all...

my local is 2/3 full , critical care.
that is ok, it should not be full

I work in a covid ICU and it is not busy. We have 3 patients in at present. Rest of the hospital has 160 empty beds. If we had 1 empty bed pre covid it was cause for celebration!