Hospital staff, tell us the reality

[Ihateme]

I’m am so fed up of seeing people comment on here that schools should be going back, that people should not be reporting mass gatherings in tier 4, how dare people begrudge a child their birthday party etc...

The hospitals are in a worse state now than they were during the first peak. Would any doctors or nurses care to confirm this? Maybe then these Mumsnetters will get the message.

Abcdecat
I hope you have a restful sleep today after your night shift.
Thank you for all you do.

Thank you @Abcdecat. You are so very much appreciated and valued. Hope you get some good rest today.

I agree with you @inquietant. It's all very well to say people are entitled to an opinion, but when that opinion simply throws out cold hard fact then are they? It's a dangerous road to go down to say that opinion matters more than reality. I fear we are seeing this more and more in our culture in many ways.

I'm all for free speech and defend the right for people to have and articulate opinions, even if contrary to fact, but when this then becomes the overriding ideology in something like this it's dangerous because it tugs in the gullible and undecided who want to believe it's not as bad as all that for whatever reason.

Facts matter.

@zigaziga

I’m so sick of people talking about human rights, it’s insulting to people who’ve lived in dictatorships or go talk to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe about the loss of human rights.

Nurses and drs are saying that they are overwhelmed and some people have the audacity to question it.

Health care staff have died through contracting covid from their patients sacrificing their lives to look after the rest of us.

A lot of people need to get a grip!!!

Thank you to all the HCPs who have posted on here
I'm baffled by the people who don't want to believe this is happening. I posted a link to this thread on Scotsnet and was told this was "classic MN fearmongering ". Some people would rather watch covid denial YouTube videos from November.
This goes hand in hand with demanding that vaccination staff do "extra shifts" and work "extended hours" " do hope they have a plan"
Couldn't make it up.

My mum was an NHS nurse and got covid really bad. However, I think the cure is now worse than the disease.
Why?
My baby was born just before lockdown. Something seemed not right and from about 2 weeks we tried to get help but just got telephone calls up to 6 months reassuring us.
We are now looking at a cerebral palsy diagnosis. MRI soon, which may or may not show damage from severe jaundice going untreated whilst we were being reassured.
So best case scenario is we missed vital intervention time because of Covid.
Worse case it directly caused it.
Currently very little physical and mental health support to deal with this. Had to wait 5 months for psychologist even though I have contemplated suicide.
I'm out of patience with this. It is sad but not deadly enough to just drop everything else. Perhaps if they'd locked down properly when D's was born we wouldn't be in this mess.

Time to stop paying into the pockets of Sky and football players and recognise the true heroes of today
Yes, this^

Is it true that midwives are being redeployed to Covid wards and that maternity wards are being turned into Covid wards? I’m sure the NHS would shut maternity if they could.

@TheBuffster sorry to hear. I’m in a slightly similar boat re cerebral palsy concerns. I hadn’t known the link with jaundice. Would you mind sharing what you’ve noticed? I’m particularly worried by one sided dominance and not mobilising much. We were being monitored for jaundice daily and were told it didn’t meet threshold for going back in to hospital.
I so hope things are addressed for you better from now on in.

@Yohoheaveho

Time to stop paying into the pockets of Sky and football players and recognise the true heroes of today Yes, this^

Feel free to pay every time you visit a doctor🤷🏻 That's how the football gets money. Doctors can plop some ads on their coats as well. And few billboards in waiting rooms. Basically. Privatise NHS, fill it with ads and maybe some competition like "fastets heart surgery"and there you go. Football wages.

In another words. Paying sky for access to football games and footballers wages have absolutely nothing to do with NHS wages and cannot be compared🤷🏻

@RosesAndHellebores I hope you are volunteering yourself as the midwife who works her shifts, does vaccines in her days off and is talking about volunteering in schools does.

The problem is, ever since i have worked in the NHS , more or less every winter it is at full capacity abd there is a shortage of beds, a lot of which are full of frail elderly patients who are well enough to go home but dont have either the family or paid carer support to so as there is also a shortage of carers , so the tipping point to go from full capacity to a crisis is is quite narrow. Add in an ongoing shortage of nurses, wasnt it 40, 000 this year? We should have spent the last 9 months fast tracking nursing training and creating more community beds and carers so that the people who are well enough to be discharged can be.

We should have spent the last 9 months fast tracking nursing training and creating more community beds and carers so that the people who are well enough to be discharged can be
why did the government not do this?
Cock-up, conspiracy, cock-spiracy?😳

TO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO HELP

Please consider signing up with NHS Professionals. I’m a non-clinical NHS worker and they apparently offer training on how to vaccinate.

I registered my interest in November and I’ve literally done a video interview this morning so it does take a while to get through the process. But the vaccination programme is going to be a marathon, and help is going to be needed desperately

www.nhsprofessionals.nhs.uk/en/joining-nhsp/latest-news/detail?Id=join-the-covid19-vaccine-team-with-nhs-professionals

Thanks @stonebrambleboy @Madhairday

I agree we need more nurses, however we need more experienced nurses who can hit the ground running (in my dreams lol). This is where the amazing international nurses have come in, the UK owes a debt of gratitude to these people who are often racially abused and told they are lucky to be here. The reality of the situation is the uk is lucky to have them.

I worked during the first wave as a student, qualified and now working as a staff nurse. We’ve had some amazing students working with us for no pay and a pretty crap ‘grant’. The UK needs to take a leaf out of the book of many other countries and introduce way more accelerated nursing programmes. These could be 18 months for people who have already graduated. There should be more nurse apprenticeships, and something should be done for the amazing HCAs (who really are the backbone of the nhs) who could and would train as nurses/AHPs if the opportunity was right. I think registered nurse degree apprenticeships are the way forward for 3 year programmes, because I paid 40,000 to work thousands of clinical hours for no bursary, no grant and it was miserable at times. I don’t think the tories have a clue on how to make these changes, or any idea what nurses really do.

I just spoke to my friend whose a ward nurse, she has 8-15 patients a day and she’s ready to pack it in. The main reason for her isn’t the crap conditions but it’s the absolutely awful way relatives speak to her on the phone. As an icu nurse where we look after the sickest in the hospital we have lovely, appreciative relatives even though they are going through hell.

Whereas she got called a ‘stupid cow’ and told by a relative that her patient was really, really unwell and needed properly looking after and did the nurse know just how unwell they were. The relative informed my friend her father should not be washing his own face, that was the nurses job. My friends heard stuff like this hundreds of times. Ridiculous attitudes like this really need to be got rid of, because it results in an institutionalised patient who becomes unable to do anything for themselves . I think the general public always likes to think of themselves as more of an expert than registered nursing staff. I fully appreciate there are some wards which aren’t up to scratch and do need telling straight but in most cases it’s not needed.

Apologies for this rant I went on^ it’s not exactly covid related but it’s the reality of the nhs atm. All these things add up and do not help the situation

The absolutely awful way relatives speak to her on the phone
I blame the government for this, they don't treat nurses as if they are valuable and this gives licence for the general public to follow suit.
It's a disgrace.

My mum just had the latest update for the hospital she works in, they now have more covid patients than they did in the first peak, risen by 30 in last two days. Before it was a revolving door so the numbers stayed fairly static of dropped but not now.

What is the profile of these patients? Are they mainly elderly or a mix? Genuinely interested.

@Livinginthecity

What is the profile of these patients? Are they mainly elderly or a mix? Genuinely interested.

The ones who remain at home to die, or come home from A&E or hospital to die are generally 70+ altnough we also have had younger patients with neuroligical conditions such as MND or MS in their 40’s/50’s who chose to remain at home rather than be admitted to hospital.

* I’m really struggling to understand why the fuck this matters? Aren’t the deaths of nearly 70,000 people who would still be alive and quite happily walking about if they hadn’t caught it enough for you? The reality is that unless you are young (not middle aged) and in peak physical fitness, you could find yourself in real trouble.*

That’s so true. And add to that number those that haven’t died but have ended up suffering from long Covid. Still a minority of cases, of course, but a lot of sufferers of this are actually very young, well below middle age. (Not me, I’m 51. But the Facebook support group I’ve joined includes a lot of fairly young people, including a mum of four who is 31.)

And also, a lot of ‘vulnerable’ people have potentially many years of life left. My DH has asthma, but his physical health is excellent.

@Mariebarrone thank you so much for asking. Since 16th March along with the rest of senior mgt in my organisation, I have worked 60 to 70 hours pw, no extra bank work for extra hours, managed a large team over zoom and we have done our best to keep our services and the organisation afloat. Due to a huge reduction in income I have had to run a restructure making 90 staff redundant. Those of us left who are in senior grades have had to take a pay cut to save further job cuts. I've taken 15%. Many of my staff have taken 10% and have worked 10/12 hour days throughout trying to support the cuts and reorganisations that have proven essential to try to ensure the on-going financial viability of the organisation. Since 16th March I have taken a total of 15 days of annual leave and worked almost every weekend.

People outside the NHS are working all out as well and hundreds of thousands of people will lose jobs. Hopefully this crisis will bring home the spectacular mismanagement of the NHS for decades and spanning all governments. Although I do understand the pressures front line staff are currently working under and I am sorry for that but there is so little appreciation of the pressures others are working under with zero job security for their families and even in the best of times sustained performance management.

What I'd really like to know is what all the admin and support staff are doing. At my local MH Trust for example, they are all working from home even though trust phones can't be diverted, there is no up to date info on the website and patients are receiving a sub-optimal service.

As for volunteering, usually I cook four or five times over the winter for 60 homeless people at a time, serve and clean a church hall afterwards with other volunteers. I am sorry it hasn't been possible this year but other arrangements have been put in place due to social distancing.

I was in hospital last week for suspected gallstones. In Central London. And I Can tell you every 5 mins (no exaggeration) there was an emergency covid resus call over the tannoy. They were overrun. They forgot to come back for 90 mins to even give me pain medication they were so busy. A lot of the fast tracked students taking major responsibilities. The reality of it was pretty frantic and scary. I don't think they are lying to us. I think that perhaps it hasn't hit every hospital again... yet. But I was more freaked out by all that was going on Re that than I was my own ailments. I couldn't have got out of there quick enough.

I am a nurse and midwife and can assure you that the situation is very bad and I urge you all to stay at home and protect your families.

Everybody I know is absolutely following the rules and has done so throughout.

I am frontline, on xmas eve we had 100 covid inpatients, today it's 161
Less than a week later, staff are having holiday leave cancelled,
It is true & it is real, how much proof do people need?