Rant alert! How do those who want Lockdown to continue justify the suffering of everyone else?

[Thefrenchbaguette]

My 3 month old has been waiting for a hip scan to confirm her rather obvious DDH. She needs a harness, the GP already confirmed she will need one and put in an urgent referral at her 6 week review and still nothing because they're not doing them at all here! You can only use a harness up until 6 months and after that the treatment for DDH is an operation! My baby is going to have to have a completely unavoidable operation or suffer lifelong damage to her hips because the NHS is just not interested in anyone who doesn't have Covid19! There isn't even the option to pay for it to be done privately! I am furious and so sick of seeing countless threads and comments about how lockdown needs to be continued and even stricter! All very well with your comfortable house and perfectly secure income and no real risk to your overall well-being but what about everyone else who is suffering?!
A friend had an abnormal smear come back in January but the follow up has been indefinitely postponed! How many people are going to miss life saving diagnosis', life saving treatments! It's disgusting and I feel so unbelievably angry at what this country has come through so 90% of people can avoid getting what is essentially a bad cold!

However you know what I’m going to say, police and services have been run to the bone and we have a government full of failed apprentice candidates who couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery

People here have such black and white thinking, that extending someone's quantity of life always trumps improving someone's quality of life. It doesn't. And that any sort of life, even one where you don't go out for years or have painful disabilities, is fine because at least you're not dead. That OP is "entitled" to not want her baby to be disabled because at least they're alive. How ridiculous.

Is the implication here that if “you don’t go out for years or have painful disabilities” - you are expendable? Or not as worthwhile?

No-one is saying that the OP’s baby shouldn’t be treated for her dysplasia. But in the current environment, it should be carefully managed to minimise risk. With dysplasia, there are options, and her DD is still quite young. And remember - lockdown won’t last forever.

@Pisspotical

This lockdown should never have been implemented in my opinion.

I’m no expert. But the reason this country has been so badly affected is because it is full.

70 million people, (that we know of), on a relatively small island.

This virus is just nature's way of thinning things out a little.

I don’t wish anyone harm or death, but what will be will be.

Wow! That’s some cold racist shit right there. Shame on you.

@Pisspotical would you be saying that if someone you loved died from the virus? Doubt it!

With dysplasia, there are options, and her DD is still quite young.

The age is the the point though. Options right now are a brace and a good outcome. In a few months’ time options are surgery and a less good outcome. Less good outcomes include a limp, more surgery and being a lifelong patient.

Do you really think it’s ok that the OP’s DD is being denied simple, effective treatment that decreases her chance of a lifetime of hip problems because of COVID? A scan, orthopaedic consult and a harness could all be done in less than an hour. If the OP’s hospital was going its job it could be be carefully managed to minimise risk - paeds orthopaedic doctors aren’t going to be on the frontline staff managing COVID patients.

This is inefficiency and negligence and a baby may face a lifelong disability as a consequence. I’m gobsmacked that so many of you are willing to put up with no other healthcare for months and months because of COViD-19. Meanwhile a baby’s chances of lifelong hip problems increases by the day because it can’t access an orthopaedic doctor and a Pavlik harness.

This is just nuts. The NHS is a shit heap and people’s life impacting treatments shouldn’t be being postponed or cancelled.

This baby is teetering on the edge of being impacted by hip dysplasia for life because some fuckwit somewhere can’t get their arse into gear, see the baby, take 15 minutes to fit a harness and then review.

OP if nothing is happening, I recommend you turn up to the emergency department and say your baby isn’t moving its hips properly, and get seen by ortho that way, or get a referral to fracture clinic. Kick up a fuss, because this is negligence.

I had sympathy for you until you said bad cold try telling that to every person who has lost someone to the “bad cold” or better yet go and tell that to the likes of Kate Garraway her husband is still in a coma thanks to coronavirus and probably won’t come out of it. I would rather the lockdown continue over me or my parents getting the virus so suck it butter cup.

OP if nothing is happening, I recommend you turn up to the emergency department and say your baby isn’t moving its hips properly, and get seen by ortho that way, or get a referral to fracture clinic. Kick up a fuss, because this is negligence.

I agree. This IS an emergency. Be loud and annoying, your daughter will thank you for it when she can walk, dance and run without difficulty. You have only a small window of time to get it sorted. The HCPs will be supportive - there’s a whole neonatal screening program in the U.K. so that hip problems are picked up as early as possible.

Not RTFT but I'm surprised tbh.

We've been offered non urgent hospital appointments and tests for my preschool age DC next week.

The other posters are right OP. Go to A and E kick up a huge fuss and refuse to leave until there's a resolution. No ideal, but necessary

What was the point of lockdown when 15,000 turned out in London yesterday? It just makes a mockery of the whole thing, we might as well get back to work and school. There will be more riots as people loose their jobs in August. No job, no school, lots of angry people about to protest, then the R rate goes up. The whole thing has been a waste of time.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52949014

@Pisspotical You're right. You are no expert. Stick to speaking on what you know and stop embarrassing yourself.

@Alex50.
Couldn't agree more. The numpties in Parliament Square yesterday means the whole thing has probably been a waste of time as we have to go back to square one again.

Haven't finished RTFT but wanted to thank @Alanna1 for the legal link. I'm going to start kicking off big time this week about DH being denied treatment and I'm fully prepared to take legal action if needed.

"Without lockdown, we could well be back where we were in March, with Covid rampaging through hospitals, infecting patients who were already there for no Covid reasons, and a massive staff shortage due to huge numbers of staff off sick or self isolating due to symptoms. The NHS was days away from total collapse back in March! That could happen again very easily if numbers are allowed to rise exponentially again."

We have to keep saying this. Lockdown allows at least some non Covid work to continue, loosening lockdown too much means it cant. People have to return to work but the more people continue to social distance the more non Covid work the NHS can do.

People who dont want to listen want this child to miss out.

Urgent non covid cases means emergency admissions eg acute appendicitis, heart attacks. Some clinics continued via virtual means. Urgent pacemakers echoes etc continued. The cons Drs who dud clinics are now on call and on the wards as teams are split down the middle to covid and non covid. We are now going into the phase of opening up some servitude's safely ( it's management decision). The hospital shops canteens cafes closed, no visitors, no leave for clinical staff. We have all moved to fill areas that are short on a weekly basis.
Anything that is time critical needs to be addressed now eg OP needs to ask the GP for urgent ortho advice.
But why does there always have to be such nastiness and blame ? This is a pandemic and public emergency so the public have been protected from high risk of catching it in hospitals. It makes me so sad on MN when just because things now start to settle the retospectroscope comes out and it's suddenly complaints and legal action against the nhs who have done everything they can.

This baby’s care has fuck all to do with decisions about lockdown.

Someone, somewhere is obstructing this baby from getting the care that she needs urgently. The GP has done the right thing. So the options are:

• An ortho doctor has read the referral and decided it isn’t urgent. If this is the case, it’s negligence on the part of that doctor because any well trained ortho should know that a baby with hip dysplasia needs to be seen and sorted to avoid surgery.

• the ortho doctor has read the referral and triaged it as urgent but some bureaucrat or some bureaucratic process somewhere in the clinic service is preventing the baby being seen in which case it’s negligence on the part of the service

• the ortho doctor has read the referral, triaged it as urgent, the admin people want to book it in, but the Trust bosses are saying no “because Covid” in which case it’s negligence on the part of the Trust.

This is something that can be sorted in under 30 minutes in any room, anywhere, with an ortho who knows how to fit a Pavlik harness, the baby and the OP. That’s it. Without it, the baby will likely need open hip surgery.

Covid has meant the NHS has lost all perspective.

It makes me so sad on MN when just because things now start to settle the retospectroscope comes out and it's suddenly complaints and legal action against the nhs who have done everything they can.

But there’s no “retrospectroscope” with this. That refers to how, with the benefit of hindsight, clinical care would have taken a different direction. The direction this care has taken is negligent and shit from any direction.

There is no scenario that justifies a 6 week old baby with a clinically unstable hip not getting a harness. As notbad says the whole procedure would take less than 30 minutes. It could be fitted anywhere on the hospital. It could be fitted on a change mat in the fucking car park. Covid hasn’t deployed all the orthopaedic surgeons, nor are Pavlik harnesses being used for resuscitation.

As a consequence of not getting early treatment the OP’s baby is rapidly reaching the age when the hip will be worse, need surgery and the risks of life-long hip problems increase.

I cannot believe that people are shrugging off this urgent scenario off and justifying it “because COVID”.

Absolutely complaints need to occur. The NHS has failed abysmally in its provision of health care to this baby. This is now an emergency situation.

This is not to do with lockdown. This is to do with organising non-immediately-life threatening conditions, which may actually be benefitted by lockdown as less likelihood of increase in cases.

No longer- I've already advised re the baby care. OP needs to call the GP tomorrow and the GP will call the orthopaedic team for her.

My post re complaints and legal action was more about the shift from several posters who instead of taking appropriate action now in the context of covid coming under control seem to want to complain and take legal action straightaway. Each situation is different. First they need to expedite their individual problem with their GP or hospital specialist via their secretary and gain advice of the urgency of their clinical problem.

Do definitely raise it with gp and ortho in hospital. Important elective care should start up. They do have to be careful to avoid outbreaks in hospitals (as occurred with care-homes) - and this may require re-organising (eg occurring in neighbouring hospital/alternative premises), but govt and public health should provide leadership.

Is OP still reading though ?

No longer- are you nhs medical staff

As awful as OPs situation is, it's really not an emergency. I am in no way down playing the potential outcomes or risk to poor child but in the grand schemes of medical conditions it's simply not an emergency. As my previous post said, a risk assessment will have been done and all patients on the consultants work load will have been put in priority order to be seen. Chances are this case is one of 100s so isn't just a case of "it will take 30 mins" - why would this child be prioritised over a different one with the same condition who maybe has it worse or been waiting longer?

Also perhaps the hospital doesn't have many consultants who specialise in this area and the ones that do are off sick (as is the case with one of the specialties I manage - the entire consultant body (only 2 total to be fair) are off sick with covid - one on ICU and one poorly at home). You can't just magic medics up from no where.

Advice would be to contact PALS and ask calmly and politely what the situation is, what the reasoning is for the patient not being seen, the likelihood of date to be seen and lastly a copy of the risk assessment or risk stratification for this particular patient from the consultant as to the clinical decision made to have delayed the care. If the latter is not provided you can then escalate as a safety concern to the medical director and head of nursing