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.

@Scattybrain89 you are all doing a great job! We will get through it together. The most demoralising thing for me is the generalisation that we arent working our bones off to keep people safe. Unless you work front line, covid facing you are honestly never going to understand.

Sending my most heartfelt love and thanks to all docs, nurses and HCPs at this awful time.

My family and friends are following all the rules and strongly encouraging others to do the same

💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐

www.itv.com/news/2020-12-31/covid-royal-london-hospital-operating-in-disaster-mode-unable-to-provide-high-standard-critical-care

[quote colouringindoors]www.itv.com/news/2020-12-31/covid-royal-london-hospital-operating-in-disaster-mode-unable-to-provide-high-standard-critical-care[/quote]
Best delete that too.

We wouldn't want people reading the news or being faced with reality. It might upset them.

I also worry about the mental health toll dealing with Covid and such high death rates will have on NHS staff. I can't imagine the NHS being able to recruit new nurses onto courses in near future. They must be exhausted with the extra workload when colleagues are off sick or self isolating and doing extra shifts too. They will burn out. They should get a bloody big bonus, but they won't.

At my hospital there are emails asking us all to volunteer to do a day or two of basic nursing care on the adult wards after an hour of training (I'm a consultant in Paeds)

So many staff off and numbers of patients rising at a scary rate.

@CoRhona

Agree with *@Lougle*. As much as that email is there to prove your point (and I wholeheartedly agree with you) it is not meant to be public and should be removed.

It's literally ALL OVER the press, every news outlet has reported on that email, so having it on here too really doesn't make much of a difference

It depends on the area and the hospital. You need to get nursing staff from all areas to give you a true picture of how they are (or not) coping.

Can't actually believe what we are discussing and witnessing.

The NHS has been overwhelmed due to government choices - the mutation is not controllable but we were riding at too high a level from late September onwards. Plus the Conservative underfunding for the last ten years is the root cause.

You will get loads of lying conspiracy theorists pretending they are nurses and that their wards are empty now!

inquietant absolutely agree. The NHS was struggling WITHOUT a pandemic. Johnson, in his bid to be people-pleaser, has not locked down strictly or quickly enough, over and over again. He was advised by all the main scientific advisors to lockdown at the end of last September, for 3 weeks over the half term break. This would have prevented us being where we are right now and probably prevented the virus mutation to take hold like it has. They knew of the mutation then already but didn't disclose it publicly. The only conspiracy here is the government not sharing the truth and preventing the full truth of what's happening in the NHS from reaching the media.

I don’t think anyone is being critical of doctors and nurses, just nhs management who seem to be shit all round, Covid or not

Don't know why this is constantly trotted out, without challenge. DH trained as a nurse and is now a service manager, is passionate about his job and works extremely hard on behalf of the clinical team he manages at our local general hospital. He's just gone in on his day off, and yes, the hospital is struggling like he's never known it.

@TheNationsFavourite

I don’t think anyone is being critical of doctors and nurses, just nhs management who seem to be shit all round, Covid or not

Don't know why this is constantly trotted out, without challenge. DH trained as a nurse and is now a service manager, is passionate about his job and works extremely hard on behalf of the clinical team he manages at our local general hospital. He's just gone in on his day off, and yes, the hospital is struggling like he's never known it.

Yeah happens all the time in teaching as well. If anything isn't working out, it must be the Management, rather than understanding one's hands are usually tied due to a remote policy decision.

Kidsaregrim, get off your arse and phone up the hospital manager and ask them why vaccines are thrown away. There should be a process where staff are given the vaccine or there shuls be a standby lost is the people in the next group or staff. If you know about this and you're doing nothing, you are responsible. Bad management is no excuse for wasting public funds

Remote decisions are never set in stone. Hospital management can override them, and good managers do.

It is all over the press, but I think it shouldn't be. Having ICU care is so worrying for patients and relatives at the best of time. People hear ICU and think 'critically ill', 'could die'. If you add to that emails that say 'we can't give the care we should', it will cause panic.

The bottom line is that every patient gets the best care that can be given in the circumstances. Life saving measures will take priority over optimising measures.

Generally, staff will sacrifice their own well being (missing breaks, drinking less, going to the toilet only when desperate, doubling up on care, etc.,) before the patient sees any difference in care. It's only when those measures are exhausted that turns are reduced, etc.

I dont understand the hospital shortages, aren't people being sent to the nightingale hospitals if they have covid, wasn't this the point of them. Are they even up and running? I heard a lot of hoo ha earlier in the year about the nightingale hospitals and then nothing more.

It is all over the press, but I think it shouldn't be

So journalists shouldn't report material reality in case it upsets people or because it might draw attention to poor management of the country and to the appalling conditions that NHS workers are expected to work in (to the detriment of their health and well-being)?

You think we should censor things and pretend its not happening so that the rest of the population can continue to live in ignorant bliss?

Yep i think thats a good idea. Whilst we are at it we should ban all reporting of any disaster in the country or around the world. Cos that will make it a better place and it will upset less people. We should ban journalism full stop because actually its their job to report reality warts and all.

Instead we can have wall to wall celeb gossip and movies. Until we get hit by a disaster which no one cares or condemns cos no one knows about it.

You are either desperately naive and privileged or completely lacking in humanity if you think we shouldn't allow bad things to be reported. The only way we have a chance of stopping them happening again is to make the public aware of the truly awful.

Places which censor stuff like this are not nice places to live because they have active policies of allowing the abuse or neglect of their population. The thing that ultimately leads to them being stopped and a 'never again' attitude in the public is an open and free society where journalism is not constrained.

For all the freedoms we currently lack (for rational reasons) thats one that we can not afford to lose. Its the thing that protects our humanity long term.

And yes people should be bloody concerned if there is no health left in the country.

And yes they should be panicked.

My local community hospital had to be shut down and tristel cleaned/fumigated, it's open again on Monday. There was a massive outbreak of coronavirus. We live in a very rural area nowhere near the south east. I was supposed to be working there over the weekend but got the call.

@haggistramp

I dont understand the hospital shortages, aren't people being sent to the nightingale hospitals if they have covid, wasn't this the point of them. Are they even up and running? I heard a lot of hoo ha earlier in the year about the nightingale hospitals and then nothing more.

Staffed by magic fairies presumably?

Where do you propose the nurses come from to work in these Nightingales?

Lougle it’s very patronising of you to insinuate that joe public can’t cope with the truth and therefore it should be hidden from them. The NHS belongs to all of us and we all have a right to know the state of it.
Yes it’s scary to be a patient or to have a relative in hospital, but that fear could be put to good use to campaign for better staffing and better funding for our NHS.

I don’t want to be tested like a pleb who has the truth hidden from them.

@RedToothBrush

And yes people should be bloody concerned if there is no health left in the country.

And yes they should be panicked.

It still won’t make a difference to the deniers.

Being a denier needs to become taboo not cool.

They should be shamed.

My friend is in ICU with Covid and someone else I know a bit just died at 62 of Covid. These things don't mean I want to hide away and pretend it's not happening because I am anxious about it, it's the opposite in fact. I want to be armed with the truth, to know all I can know. Suppressing truth was never a good idea in history, that way propaganda and then dictatorships lie.

@RedToothBrush keep doing what you're doing. Hopefully minds will be changed, or at least challenged. But I'm not sure the minds of the very wilfully ignorant (always the same names on here) can be changed. It's maddening, isn't it. I'd like to take you for a drink

Love and thanks to all of you working out there on the frontline. You are appreciated. Most people I know support you and are following the rules. Thank you.