To hate what covid has done to the rest of the health service

[Dishwashersaurous]

I need an operation. Haven't seen a consultant in over a year due to covid. Finally, following telephone appointment I've been listed for the surgery.

I'm in constant pain and barely able to get out of bed most days.

I phoned to find how long the waiting list is. Due to covid its over a year.

I then investigated taking out a loan to go privately. The private wing at the hospital have just told me that due to covid they are not doing any overnight stays for months.

So I will probably lose my job ic I have to wait until a year. And I will be in constant pain. And all due to covid

[quote hamstersarse]@Natty13

Given ~40% of cases were transmitted in hospitals, do you want to go down that road of not following restrictions / following infection control protocol?[/quote]
Lol 40% certainly not anywhere near that in any of the 5 hospitals I cover. We definitely did see a shit load of transfers to mine who caught it while in with something else and they were all from the worst staffed and worst laid out hospitals so doesn't take an expert to see why that is. When you run out of space where do you put them? When the govt downgrade PPE what do you do? When you run out of soap how do you wash your hands? Boris and his mates certainly don't have to answer those questions yet they wrte responsible for a lot of it.

The same as we do with any other outbreak of flu such as 2018/2019 flu outbreak which had more deaths.
Same as we did with SARS and Swineflu.
Stats fo not bear out the need for a lockdown.
The cost to this country will nver be quantified. How many people would not have felt such despair they killed themselves? How will our children learn social skills when they are stuck away from other people, how many people are now terminal that wouldn't have been?
The costs were too great

We definitely did see a shit load of transfers to mine who caught it while in with something else and they were all from the worst staffed and worst laid out hospitals so doesn't take an expert to see why that is.

So why the ‘lol’ @Natty13

The point is, it’s easy / lazy to blame covidiots but someone not wearing a mask down to Tesco ain’t touching the sides

Covid is not the flu - flu has nothing like the transmission rate as Covid. You need to get your facts correct.

YANBU OP. It’s criminal the way everything else has been cast aside. I can’t believe more people don’t question it.

I do agree though it’s a postcode lottery (& always has been). It’s just highlighting the cracks in the system.

It is in the same family
And yes they do that family of virus is very very contagious
Bearing out my comments regarding figures
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2017to2018provisionaland2016to2017final#statisticians-comment

Of course, it's awful, but the alternative is to let people die of Covid. Would you want that on your conscience? The NHS has finite resources and no amount of wailing or complaining is going to change that in the short term.

One of my sons was seen pretty quickly last year at the hospital when he had a strange lump appear suddenly so that was good. But don't get me started on the shit-show that is CAMHS. As if it wasn't bad enough before...

I can understand GP's trying to avoid face to face consultations as standard and frankly mine will be keeping it the way it is due to positive feedback. They will merrily call people into the practice if they can't diagnose over the phone/video call.

I've had numerous things fail on me over the last few years and some departments have kept going whereas others have been massively delayed.

Some of it is genuinely because of the pandemic but from what I'm hearing from NHS staff I know is that some departments have over reacted and massively reduced their work loads.

It's easy to do this when you can scream "Tory cuts" and there is no real oversight because it's the glorious NHS.

I'm sick to death of covid being used as an excuse for not being able to see or get medical help!

@Dishwashersaurous

And I guess that my point is a more fundamental one.

In a modern, civilised society and one of the tenth richest countries in the world, why is it actually considered acceptable to leave someone in debilitating pain for over a year. When there is a really simple solution that will remove the pain.

Ask the Government that have underfunded and under resourced our NHS for over 12 years now. Ask the people that keep voting for them. Ask the people that agreed with austerity measures. You get the NHS that you vote for. Yes we could have a first world first class healthcare system - if we were prepared to insist our Government spend the necessary money on it. But most of the public seem to be strangely resistant to that. Much easier to blame the NHS and it’s staff for mismanagement and laziness eh?

There was no alternative. Hospitals were full, in some cases overflowing (and seriously ill patients transferred to other areas of the country) with Covid patients. Staff were transferred to work on Covid wards and even theatres were converted into wards. There were no staff or wards for non Covid patients.

I completely understand the many frustrations expressed here but the reality has been that resources have been stretched to breaking point.
Unfortunately that's meant the NHS has had to make heartbreaking choices.
My own experience was back in November when my life was literally saved by the prioritising.
I had a stroke completely out of the blue home alone and was panicking at having to wait hour for an ambulance and didn't want to make a fuss.
I called 111 again expecting to be on hold for hours. Luckily for me my call was answered within seconds and twenty minutes later an ambulance was knocking at the door. Another half an hour I was being seen to by the trike specialists.
It was my first time of being an NHS emergency and I was truly humbled and grateful for it.
I'm so sorry for those of you suffering with long term pain, I do know how hard that is

But rather than bashing what we haven't got we should be eternally grateful for what we do.
And maybe make better choices with how we use our vote!

It's such a postcode lottery with GPs. It's never been easier to get an appointment at my local GP, who now direct everyone to the e-consult system and get back with a phonecall within 48 hours. I've been seen in person as well when it's been necessary.

OP, look into having it done privately at other private hospitals. My husband is having an operation privately tomorrow, and one in June and will be staying overnight both times.

Apart from the humanitarian aspect of leaving people in extreme pain it is an economic disaster too if they cannot work and support their families, and become dependent on benefits.
On a personal level I have been very pleased to live in this county during the last year. I had a 2 week referral for gynaecological issues very promptly listed, got lots of good advice from the consultant who could quickly tell me it was not cancer and then an appointment to see my G.P.in person to resolve what was really a very minor symptom the week afterwards.

@Natty13

Ive never told anybody to be quiet or stop. I've offered my perspective the same way everyone else is on here and I wont be bullied out of here by you. As you said everyone is allowed to be sad and what I'm sad about is having to tell a woman she couldn't go to visit her miscarried baby in the chapel because she was too sick to leave the unit. Sharing experiences is an important part of getting support or moving towards healing.

I would like to point out that 99% of people on here say they blame the higher up decision makers yet find it funny how that translates to a hell of a lot of attitude to nurses and doctors on the shop floor. People are CONSTANTLY having a go at us for decisions we've had nothing to do with and can't do anything aout. A year ago I'd ove to have a lovely conversation about how this had all been managed and what could have gone better when my patients want to rant about it instead of talking about what the appt was for but I'm fucking exhausted, I haven't seen my parents or siblings for over a year, and I have a lot of the stressors at home as everyone else does. I do wonder how all of you behave when you go in for appts because there is constant NHS bashing on this site and I'd be surprised if half of you aren't the ones I'm seeing who want to have a rant whenever you come for an appt.

The government are to blame for all of this. Full stop.

How dare you

I agree. Call me harsh but I'd rather have treated significantly fewer older sick patients with Covid in order to maintain treatment for other issues for younger, healthier patients. This chimes with the NHS' normal policy of assessing things based on 'quality of life years' i.e. how long a person would live after the intervention, and how much it would improve their quality of life. A huge proportion of people filling up hospitals from Covid were 80+ with other health conditions, hence few quality of life years from treating them. But this concept seems to have been dropped during covid.

Can't believe you have accused me of trying to be a bully.
I think it's time I finish with this thread as I won't give you what you want @natty13 and start on you.

Thanks I’m going to try and phone some other places. Just too ill and tired to face the phone call.

I’m also curious as to why seemingly the NICE guidelines about cost of extra years of life wasn’t applied regarding Covid. But that’s a whole separate debate

notalwaysalondoner I agree with this. Hopefully now we are coming out of this there will be some real conversations about how far we can realistically push someone's life. I'm honestly horrified at how many pediatricians we had to deploy away from looking after kids in order to look after 80 year olds who realistically never had a chance. It's just so hard to have these practical conversations without making it sound like you think someone deserves to die. Just so cruel for everyone involved.

There was no alternative. Hospitals were full, in some cases overflowing (and seriously ill patients transferred to other areas of the country) with Covid patients.

That just isn't true. It may have been for one week in the past year, maybe two, but not for 13 months. There were hardly any cases last summer right the way up to November/December. But 'overflowing' for 13 months? Not true.

Hospitals were not constantly full!
According to Dd1 there was those dealing with covid and others doing tik tok dances on empty wards