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.

I do know that 2 males 40 years olds that are known to me personally are in hospital with lung issues from covid .
We just all have to pull together.
Follow advice given if it takes school returns to be staggered then so be it.

The A&E I work in has been inundated with Covid positive patients. More than any other. We are not rolling in patients denied treatment over the last few months. We have ambulances queuing to get in. My husbands is in a worse state and to be quite honest I don’t want to go in because I’m filled with dread. I’m not taking all my breaks because i feel guilty at the work left to do. It’s even more demoralising reading that all we do is TikToks and it’s empty in our hospital.

We have had letters and emails from the Trust begging us to take extra shifts in various services as the staffing is so dire.

I think it will depend on the area but my husband works in Worcestershire NHS Trust and ICU is full, taking patients from overspill from Birmingham. Worse than it was in April and May.

Yesterday on Sky news thry reported one London hospital very low on Oxygen. I don't think they are making this up. Some patients were being diverted to other hospitals. You don't have to be particularly bright to realise some areas of the country are at crisis point with very little space left in hospitals whilst other areas of the country are less infected yet. Give it a few weeks after all Xmas mingling we will get higher rates virtually everywhere. Over 50,000 new cases for 2 days in a row and over 900 dead today. Death gigure possibly inflated with.Xmas reporting but very frightening. People just need to use common sense and stay in at home, shop online and I think now schools should all adopt home learning, and I don't say this lightly because I know some schools do very.lite when kids are not in school but with vaccine on horizon we just need to batten down as and wait our turn for a vaccine. I know economy will take s further hit but we should focus on saving lives and economy can bounce back next year. We have now got deal with.EU and other countries worth 900 billion per annum and still more deals to be completed. We can catch economy up later but can't bring back dead loved ones. I am just so thankful we live in a country that will all be vaccinated and feel sorry for those who won't get vaccine until next 2022 or later.

The nightingales are invested by private funding and are already looking for returns on their investment. For example, the damage that has been done to the floor at Excel has now got to be repaired. It could only be populated if we had the staff to run it.

Try standing by the Covid lifts at major London hospitals and see deceased on trolleys being loaded up every 7 minuets into the backs of silver or black transit type van that belong to undertakers. It’s all real, trust me.

Hell on earth.

Perhaps anyone who thinks the virus is exaggerated could volunteer to work at a hospital . No PPI of course ! Seriously ....is there a more annoying phrase at the moment than “do the research!” ....what , on the internet ? Famed for its truth and consistency 😆

I’m hospital staff and it’s incredibly busy and stressful.
Beds are full, staff who aren’t off isolating or shielding are struggling and can’t take any more. Many work unpaid overtime regularly. Many are guilty because the pressures mean they can’t offer the level of care they otherwise would.

Covid affects every aspect of a hospital - not just covid wards.
Oncology wards have covid patients, maternity wards have covid patients etc.

Many people with covid still need specialised care for another ongoing health issue, they aren’t just ushered into one ward for covid.

Scary, just gone to 4 here

At my hospital we only have 1 ward that is NOT covid. ITU is half full of covid. I hope ITUs will hopefully not be quite as bad as last time due to improvements in treatment and a better understanding of the virus, meaning more people can be treated on the wards. However this shows that there is little capacity for anything else. So for all you people who deny there is even a problem have you actually been and looked round a hospital? Would you be willing to volunteer in a hospital or be trained to swab and vaccinate the general public? I doubt very many of you would you would rather play keyboard warrior from the relative safety of your home. People who deny there is a problem are more likely to spread the virus because to them "it's not a real issue" and therefore won't take appropriate precautions to protect themselves or others...

A close friend of mine is a senior nurse at a London hospital and her DH is a doctor at a different London hospital. I spoke to her this morning and she described it as 'absolute carnage'. They have both been doing this all their lives and have never seen anything like it. Unfortunately I have been arguing with a friend on Facebook today about this as, like IndecentFeminist, she thinks the picture in her local hospital is the only truth. We do our NHS a huge disservice by discrediting their very real and horrific reality so I can totally understand why the OP asked the question.

To all you bloody idiots who think that the impact of this disease is all made up go tell that to my dead mother who died alone, with family not being able to visit for two months. When it directly effects you perhaps your opinion will change!!!

But Mrs Lighthouse the press has reported today that 10s of retired GPS who want to pitch in can't because they don't have up to date "Prevent" certificates! It beggars belief!
@SirSimonStevens could you hop on and comment please?

A friend of mine spent 2 weeks in the local hospital having caught the virus from her (primary aged) children - one child was asymptomatic and the other had mild symptoms. Before her children tested positive, she literally did the school run and walked the dog - food shop done online. She is still exhausted and struggling to breathe.

Another friend of mine works for a private hospital trust as a senior medical secretary- the hospital has been doing NHS surgery since March in order to relieve the local NHS hospital. In mid December they had to stop any ‘risky’ surgery as there was no ICU space at the local NHS hospital in the event something went wrong. I’d say that’s pretty real...

Is it any wonder that pregnant women are choosing to “free birth” at home? Are there even any NHS maternity services left operating after staff have been redeployed and wards overrun with Covid?

South Wales, the extra temp morgue facilities were closed. New super duper hospital opened, bigger morgue, backup in old hospital. They are now re-opening the extra temp morgue facilities as they've run out (or about to run out) of spaces in both hospitals....

Amazon respect & gratitude +a big thank to all nhs teams who put there lives on saving us. So please help them by not been so selfish & only thinking about yourselves , God bless them all ⭐️❤️⭐️❤️

In my trust (NE) we are 'settled' at just over 200 covid patients, numbers remaining static over last several weeks. We had a massive problem with in-hospital outbreaks a few weeks ago and every medical ward at one point had covid outbreaks. This made it really tough to manage the flow of patients and to keep people safe. ITUs are managing within normal capacity atm, although for a 6 w period we had escalated into an additional ITU area and were struggling to staff all areas, meaning we cancelled some elective procedures.

We've had high staff sickness, probably exacerbated by the introduction of lateral flow testing picking up asymptomatic cases.

Staff are really worn out, and using language like 'war zone' and 'brutal'. They are sick of being moved around and between sites to cover gaps in other areas. They are worried about themselves and their families, and school closing. The ECV staff are ping ponging between work/redeployment/staying home based on arbitrary analysis of what tier we are in. It feels so much harder this time as we have no sense of the end, and are trying to manage surge and carry on our usual business. We watch London and worry how we'll cope when it's our turn.

Basically its shit.

@AlwaysCheddar

Op is right to ask. One minute media tells us we’re all going to die then says the next minute that only 371 deaths have been due to Covid with no other prevailing health factors. One person says beds are empty, another sats London nightingale is being used (but it’s closed)... too many ‘stories’.

I’d like to know how many people have died of Covid alone - and none of this in the past 28 days rubbish.

One of the problems with that “statistic” which seems to popular with libertarian Mail & Telegraph popularist hacks like Alison Pearson & Julia Hartley-Brewer, the lovely sort of people who either sacrifice the elderly & vulnerable or keep them under lock & key so that they can enjoy a trip to the pub or a weekend in Tuscany. Sadly the sort of UHCs that people are dying with are not the life threatening end of life conditions like cancer or heart disease but simple conditions like high blood pressure or chronic kidney disease that many people like pretty active lives albeit with the help of medication, sensible diet and lifestyle changes.

Hi
I'm a nurse at start I worked in NICU , apart from wearing masks and only one parent no real change.
Then moved into a nursing home , no covid patients but poor practice within it I'm very surprised it wasn't ride in there.
My final job from the agency was in a hospital to in an opthmology out patients to be honest saw nothing , a lot of catch up from cancellations at start of year but nothing overly busy .
Saying that apart from the home they were low risk areas .
I was recently told 90 staff had left ICU since April but as I pointed out there are three major hospitals in town so it's not that higher rate of staff loss .

“Do the research”? The moment i heard that phrase I know the individual using it is either too lazy to actual research & provide that information or it simply does not exist. It’s rather like “Trust me!” which usually has me crossing my fingers and hoping the worst doesn’t happen...

Please stop looking a news on the BBC - seek out other sources of news. You will get a more balanced view then

Shouldn't the media be reporting live and direct from the 'NHS war zone' so to speak?

I am a registered nurse and have looked after covid patients since we first went into lockdown in March and continue to do so. I am not going to use any emotive word or phrase to describe my experience just so that so that may give it their own interpretation. Here goes: Classic ward of 24 patients with covid pneumonia. All of them are breathless and so need different concentrations of medical oxygen. Oxygen requirements can range from 2 litres to 15 litres – the 15l could be via 60% venturi or non-rebreathe mask. The group needing less oxygen are short of breath even when sitting, and cannot walk a few step to the toilet without taking a portable cylinder of oxygen with them. Sometimes, they are too weak to carry the cylinder by themselves. The group needing more oxygen can barely string 2 words together even with the oxygen mask on and they struggle to assume a comfortable position. Mealtimes are a struggle because it is a choice between closing their moth to swallow or keeping their both open because they are constantly short of breath. Most, if not all of the patients who are sicker end up with Hi-Flow oxygen via Bipap (optiflow) or are moved to ITU for intubation. Yes, some patients get better and are discharged home, but the journey to full recovery is a long one because their lungs are never the same due to having a residual degree of shortness of breath. Others, we know do not survive either because they were just too ill to survive some or were not considered suitable for BIPAP or ITU because they had existing co-morbidities. Basically, the medical team had to make the difficult decision to discontinue oxygen therapy because the patients were not expected to live much longer anyway, covid or no covid. There is a limited supply of medical oxygen nationwide. Imagine suffocating to death? This is just one ward in a large UK hospital. If anybody thinks that covid is not real or that the media is scare-mongering, you should picture the situation described above across all the hospitals in the country. Then think about the doctors and nurses who have continuing direct contact with these patients (PPE or not) and these same care-givers have to go back to their own families knowing they or their loved ones could very well be the next confirmed covid patient. All we are being asked to do is to wear face masks, regularly wash our hands, and maintain social distancing, how hard can that be?