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.

@Fishingforhapiness

Sincerely hope you and your husband test negative.

@aintnothinbutagstring

My DH is on a bank staff for a trust he used to work at and they sent a long winded text out (probably the only text he's ever had from them) pleading, and I mean pleading, people to cancel annual leave and to do some shifts with them. He can't as he works full time for another local trust, didn't have much leave over Xmas as it is. We're in Essex, obvs with some of the highest Covid case rates right now. Can imagine the next few weeks will be gruelling for hospital staff.

I'm in South Wales and am exactly the same - I left one trust last December and they are emailing and ringing, they are desperate - however I work full time in my new trust and have done extra here

I’ve just text DS2 because I knew this is his third night of four. He said work is horrendous and there were 20 ambulances waiting outside A&E when he got to work last night. I don’t know how they keep going, I really don’t. Especially when they see all these people saying it’s a conspiracy, it’s the flu, it’s all bollocks and only the elderly and vulnerable die anyway. 😡😢

Fortunately DS2 and DDIL have had their first shot of vaccine so hopefully they will be ok once they get their second, but I’ve lost count of the nights I’ve lain awake worrying about the pair of them.

DH is a GP. He's an ex-army medic so used to tough situations and I have not seen him more worried than he is now.

Screw the assertions that GPs have been 'shut' and only consulting on the phone. His has been seeing people throughout, including catching Covid himself and becoming very very unwell.

He was due to receive doses of the vaccine around the 20th December, and had patients in several nursing homes lined up to receive them. This date has been pushed back, and back, and back. We're now looking at 4th Jan for the very first doses. At a rough estimate, they will receive enough vaccine to immunise around a third of the vulnerable over 80s registered in their practice. Not even really the tip of the iceberg.

No-one seems to be shouting enough about vaccine logistics. This isn't the only thing that's making DH really, really worried, but the public should be far more worried about issues with vaccine distribution than they currently are :(

My Fiancé is a nurse in a busy London hospital and tells me its worse than the first wave. Both in terms of cases and ICU beds. They are almost at capacity and are desperately understaffed as many people are off with covid or isolating/shielding. They have canceled all elective operations and just operating two emergency theatres and redeployed staff to ICU wards.

The stories she tells me from the ICU wards are really horrific. I honestly do know how they cope. I feel so sorry for them all. They are trained to save lives but this really is something else.

Everyday seeing people die and often unexpectedly. People saying their last good byes via zoom calls on an i pad. People crying and screaming for their families. patients seeing people die and knowing its coming for them next. There's still a shortage of ventilators a vital piece of equipment.

In the last 4 weeks they have almost doubled in cases each week and the hospital have predicted it will peak in 2 weeks time.

: (

@SchnitzelVonCrummsTum

DH is a GP. He's an ex-army medic so used to tough situations and I have not seen him more worried than he is now.

Screw the assertions that GPs have been 'shut' and only consulting on the phone. His has been seeing people throughout, including catching Covid himself and becoming very very unwell.

He was due to receive doses of the vaccine around the 20th December, and had patients in several nursing homes lined up to receive them. This date has been pushed back, and back, and back. We're now looking at 4th Jan for the very first doses. At a rough estimate, they will receive enough vaccine to immunise around a third of the vulnerable over 80s registered in their practice. Not even really the tip of the iceberg.

No-one seems to be shouting enough about vaccine logistics. This isn't the only thing that's making DH really, really worried, but the public should be far more worried about issues with vaccine distribution than they currently are :(

You should send this to your MP. Or the BBC. Someone who might listen? It's a long shot I know, but it's clear we're not being told the truth isn't it?

@Kizziebel can I ask you what the average length of stay is for your ECMO covid patients ? Do they go from you to a HDU/CCU bed onto CPAP or back to a ward or does it depend ?

Sorry for all the questions, just really interested

agreed @the80sweregreat. Why not

@Kizziebel @CrochetToTheMoon

waves from a northwest ecmo centre. Hope you're doing okay!

Kids are grim,that's terrible and thank you for your insight from the front line.

I don't know what to say to you because it's just so awful.

[quote frumpety]@Kizziebel can I ask you what the average length of stay is for your ECMO covid patients ? Do they go from you to a HDU/CCU bed onto CPAP or back to a ward or does it depend ?

Sorry for all the questions, just really interested [/quote]
Anywhere from2 weeks to 2 months normally although we have a couple currently from the beginning of October. Normally once off ecmo we aim to repatriate but thats currently not possible, unless they come from the SW, due to lack of beds so we step them down to non-ecmo ITU area and start the vent weaning / sedation weaning process and hopefully extubation, if not trachy. In the first wave we then stepped down to a ward, often with NIV and trachy so imagine it'll be similar this time. It's not quite 'flu season yet so things could get more 'interesting' in the not too distant future

@frumpety I can't speak for the others, but our ecmo unit is within icu so they will wean off ecmo (come to theatre for its removal) and usually be intubated after the wean, then weans off the tube over about 3 weeks but each patient is different. But the only difference to them really in our unit is they'll move from the ecmo bay to the 'normal covid icu' bays

Tinsel I had that about 4 years ago. ELDERY df had nasty fall, already extremely ill and he was outside hospital for hours, then waiting in a and e etc days till he got onto a ward. He never left.

Paramedics have also said the increased risk of being stuck in a tiny ambulance with possible covid patients is stressful.

I’m a nurse who was redeployed to work in ICU in March (I had no previous ICU experience) and I ended up staying there until I was signed off a few weeks ago with severe anxiety and have since handed my notice in.

My hospital is a medium sized one in a large town, our ICU has had covid patients throughout but only overflowed into other areas a handful of times. We managed at the start as we had support staff sent to help us, that’s now stopped as ALL areas are under immense pressure.

Working in full PPE is exhausting and makes everything 10 times harder to do as it’s harder to hear people, to communicate with your patient, to see when you get steamed up and sometimes even feel like you can’t breath! That’s not mentioning the pressure damage some were getting on their noses. Having support staff eased things slightly as you didn’t have to work quite as quickly and repositioning your patients was made a lot easier (a sedated/vented patient is very heavy and awkward to move).

So yeah, staff are all absolutely shattered and morale is very low. My breaking point came after nursing a young patient in their early 30’s who’s parent had died only days early of covid and through the patients time with us I was in constant contact (via phone) with their remaining parent. It was heartbreaking as they couldn’t come in and then the poor patient died. Normally we would be able to offer some support to the loved ones, not just an impersonal phone call and then onto the next one!

Hospitals are always under huge pressure over winter, but never from just one virus! All my colleagues are dreading what’s to come in the next few weeks following Christmas. It’s very scary. The hospital is just about coping now and that’s with every area on every shifts requiring bank/agency staff due to constant short staffing.

So is the media scaremongering? I’ve never watched any news channel and thought that, it just portraying exactly what I’ve experienced yet there will always be those idiots that will continually just think of themselves and refuse to believe science and facts.

[quote Trollsinthedungeon]**@Kizziebel* @CrochetToTheMoon*

waves from a northwest ecmo centre. Hope you're doing okay! [/quote]
hanging in there - what else can you do?!

I think anyone with an ounce of common sense would expect hospital beds to be full - they are in any other year around this time. We have all been expecting this since the spring. But I am utterly fed up of people feeling the need to lecture other people when most people stick to the rules. It makes a bad situation utterly depressing.

I’m an icu nurse.

We are very busy with covid and also non-covid patients. Almost at the same point as the first wave (according to my colleagues, I worked elsewhere in March).

It many ways it does feel like a war zone, we are just about managing but will have to break icu nurse ratios soon. What suffers is things like repositioning/ turns, rehab, physio because we don’t have the staff, and if we do do these things we are having to watch our patients at the same time, care is just about safe, and adequate but it sadly isn’t to the standard we wants to give. We really do try our best though.

My unit is short staffed despite our nurses doing multiple bank shifts, and with agency nurses.

I see someone has asked about ECMO, whilst this wasn’t to me I have cared for many post ECMO patients. They usually came back to us still ventilated (either OETT, or trache) and took a while to get back to HDU level. Not all survived.

Most respiratory units (not always through choice) are having to take NIV patients, this helps and we are trying to keep patients on CPAP as long as possible (as this is what the evidence is showing to work better). However this means that the patients being tubed are very very unwell, and many sadly do not survive.

Covid ICU patients also seem to be even sicker than non covid ICU level patients. Double/Quad strength noradrenaline (for blood pressure), chest drains sometimes, needing proned, high amounts of ventilator support, often needing the filter.

We have a high level of sickness. 9 months of the pandemic has hit really hard, nurses put off retiring, came back off Mat leave early, delayed promotions and its hitting now.

We are very apprehensive about the effect of Christmas mixing but also apprehensive about potential lockdowns which results (sadly) in more patients attempting to end their own life.

Only 4 of our staff have received the vaccine, we have been told in no uncertain terms we aren’t a priority.

It’s really tough

My husband is an intensive care consultant. It’s hideous at the moment, they are having to send patients to the other end of the country, they’re full in his department.

One of his nursing colleagues chose to post on social media about just how bad it is recently. The abuse she got from people who want to pretend to themselves is just the flu was quite shocking.

What’s bad this time round is that the medics aren’t being supported by a vocal part of the public. Morale is low because it’s the second time they’ve had to deal with this, and now they are being routinely told that they are liars and hoaxers. They’re tired and absolutely had it with people who think they have all the answers after a few David Icke videos.

@Kizziebel I've been texting my friend every morning at 5.30 that I got up, had a shower and I'm driving to work as it's so fucking shit. I need a sticker chart 😂

Those who don’t believe covid is serious wont read this and change their minds.
I’m sick to death of conspiracy theorists dismissing everything that’s said. I do understand the utter horror this year has been for so many, but do people honestly think the government is doing this to distract us from having our freedom taken away? The government can’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, let alone plot something on this scale.

I think the other thing to note is

The NHS was fucked before covid, and could barely cope. Even 10 extra patients than usual is putting pressure on a very stretched system.

@Travelledtheworld thank you. We are often forgotten as an emergancey service. People tend not to like us very much for some reason 🤷‍♀️, hence not being offered the vaccine. I was spat at 3 times in the last month yet apparently not a priority. But its OK, me and my colleagues continue to go to work and protect people everyday 🙂
This is not a 'give me attention' reply btw. I 100% support the NHS and all those heros who are fighting this horrible virus.

My local hospital have 1/3 of their staff isolating at the moment or off with Covid. Apparently more Covid patients in the hospital now than the first wave.

I don't mean this in a sarky way, but is there anything the public can do to help? Apart from following all guidance to reduce the risk of catching covid as much as possible?

I feel so helpless sat here.

Also recently a 14 ambulance queue to get into a&e