To ask what NHS frontline staff think of Breathtaking?

[CloudyYellow]

I have watched all 3 episodes. I worked on the frontline during Covid. I found it very triggering and my fury is back.

Journalists were not allowed in. We had security on our doors because nut job “citizen journalists” kept trying to break in to film on covid wards, and other groups of nut jobs trying to “liberate” patients from our “death wards” (not their relatives, just random nutters trying to get to any patient they could). The police attended multiple times.

We also had some psycho standing on the boundary of trust property shouting abuse at nurses going into their shifts, calling them murderers and saying covid wasn’t real.

Absolutely not competent in it after a 30 minute training session though. That’s terrifying! Properly understanding mechanical ventilation and the effects your interventions have takes years. You may well have had to manage them in this emergency scenario, but you absolutely weren’t competent at it. No disrespect.

I watched it as a retired nurse and the mother of a frontline NHS nurse who worked throughout covid, apart from the 3 weeks she was very unwell after contracting it early in the pandemic . It was a tough watch and transported me right back to a place that I’ve tried to forget.

The constant worry about her at work, not being allowed to travel the 15 miles to their home to support my then Y1 and Y3 grandkids while they were home alone all day struggling with online lessons and their parents were late home from work every night.

Nurses are used to caring for the sick and dying, it’s sadly part of the job. But never on the horrific scale they experienced during the darkest months of the pandemic when they’d witness multiple deaths each day. Holding an iPad to a dying patient’s face while their sobbing families said their final words to them was horrific for all concerned. My daughter offloaded a lot to me at the time but watching it onscreen broke my heart last night.

I have nothing but admiration for all of you 💐❤️

People are silly and thoughtless at times in their lives; making out since the start of the pandemic that NHS staff have to be absolutely perfect martyr saints, just sweating away with no breaks, no normality, begrudging them any ‘perks’ that others were kind enough to gift them (which everyone has explained they did not view as perks and they would rather have not been in receipt of them in the first place) is just such a small minded thing to focus on. Yes they got the tone wrong but it wasn’t actually harming anyone. NHS staff have been completely polarised now - the career they trained for to help people probably did not include having to deal with the opinions of 67million people stereotyping them into either angels or sinners.

Some patients can be exceptionally rude and unpleasant, but I do not generalise the entire patient population based on the actions of a small minority.

I do not know anyone who participated in such videos, nor did I watch any of these videos, as I do not live a life consumed by social media.

On another note, I found the trend of 'banging pots and pans' rather absurd. Nevertheless, I appreciate that people can resort to unusual behaviours during unprecedented and stressful times.

why, its true. we are always affected by things we watch

We also had some psycho standing on the boundary of trust property shouting abuse at nurses going into their shifts, calling them murderers and saying covid wasn’t real.

Hope they dont get nurses treatment if they ever wanted it then. Could do without people like that causing extra stress.

I forgot to add that my car, amongst others, was vandalised on hospital grounds, probably by the same sort of person. That was also pretty shit!

Those talking about hospitals being empty have little experience of hospitals.
When I have visited very ill relatives outside of visiting times, you leave a busy and full ward, and then walk along deserted empty corridors to the exit. Once you remove visitors, day time admin staff, and routine clinics, there are not many visible people in the hospital. You can't see the many people on wards where you have to be buzzed to be let in.
Anyone with any real experience of hospitals knows this. So those videos of "empty" hospitals were not a surprise to me.

Saturday morning when there is no clinics is pretty deserted and it's to early for visiting .

It felt like it was never-ending.
It wasn't just the 3 waves, after each wave there was no let up as hospitals went into overdrive to try and deal with the backlog of patients, it was relentless.
Watching them introduce eat out to help out and knowing that that wave would hit us in about 6 weeks was soul-destroying.
I worked in the ICU for 30 years. I had seen a lot of tragedy and trauma, I was used to it and coped. but nothing like this.

A group of staff in hospital I worked in did a daft tic tok dance .
It was removed within 30 mins
.It was after they had finished their 13hr shift cos its 12hrs plus 2 x30 mins unpaid break
They hadn't thought about the optics it was all about cheering everyone up in a scary time .Not one person meant any disrespect.
However it caused such a backlash within the hospital to them .
I personally thought it was really inappropriate .

If you were a key worker your kids were in school or nursery. Mine were. I had both experiences. At home, home-schooling only allowed out an hour a day, and then working with kids at school. The former was worse for me.

I'm not NHS but, after having had two close relatives die in hospital of covid, it was painful viewing for me and brought it all back to me.
What I hadn't realised before watching this series, was how the NHS staff were so badly let down. Especially the PPE shortages which were a disgrace.😒

My dad caught covid in hospital & died alone. We weren’t allowed to be with him nor hold his hand etc.
My daughter worked in a covid ward in a different hospital.
On a lot of levels it was a hard watch but I’m pleased it has reminded the country what we all lived through.
I don’t know if I’m more agree with the politicians or the keyboard warriors on Twitter commenting about the programme & covid.

Same here
Front line staff throughout.
I've not been able to watch anything about Covid in the last 4yrs.
It makes me sad, angry, upset - I've got 2 yrs to go and can't wait to leave.
I dearly care for all my patients but covid has drained every once of humanity out of me.

Breathtaking sounds amazing and superbly accurate. Just not for me to relive that nightmare again🥹

I watched the first episode last night. I worked in a nursery at the time and remember feeling anxious the week leading up to lockdown. Watching that episode dug up a lot of buried emotions. The overwhelming feeling of not knowing what was going on. Walking round the eerily quiet supermarket- everyone wearing masks with wide, fearful eyes. The fear when someone started coughing. If I can feel that way after watching just one episode, I completely understand how others have been triggered or cannot face watching it at all. I am grateful to hear your stories. My heart breaks for the people who suffered and suffer still. After reading all these comments I am sobbing. I had no idea what it was like and I never will. Thank you just isn't enough.

Worse than being exposed to Covid cases without adequate PPE? Seeing your colleagues die from Covid around you? Knowing there was every chance you were taking Covid back to your family every night when you went home?

This was the reality for NHS staff in the very first wave of Covid

Just to add to my last post - in that first wave, not one person sent their child to childcare or school unless absolutely essential. The time when we never really knew what we were dealing with

Your retrospective view is totally biased

I spent the first lockdown with key worker students. We volunteered as was scary - we knew we were with kids whose parents were with Covid patients. But I knew I had it so much easier than our amazing NHS staff.

I can't bring myself to watch. But I have been raging about this since day 1 and the abuse, gaslighting and denial I've received has been unfathomable. I hope people now realise how horrific it is. Also be clear, covid isn't over. Many are STILL dying of covid (often acquired in hospital). We know HEPA removes covid from the air and FFP2/3 masks prevent transmission yet policy has removed all infection control for covid from all healthcare settings. The damage covid continues to cause with long covid and organ & brain damage is criminal because even more so because we are not using known solutions.

Not NHS but senior leader in a school and I found it very triggering too.
We cared for the children of NHS workers and seeing their faces on collection of their children will haunt me. They were broken and terrified of passing it on to their children and us. I also remember the fear from staff having to work in school and then going home and caring for their elderly parents.
I massively feel for shop workers who are often not mentioned in covid memories and bus drivers - the list goes on

Ive been a nurse for 49 years and I came out of retirement to work as a Covid vaccinator so I wasn’t working frontline ITU but we saw thousands and thousands of people coming through to us who were frightened but thankful we were there, not one of the people I worked with had any qualms about putting themselves at risk, we just wanted to help and we d do it all again in a heartbeat. I watched Breathtaking mostly in tears when I saw what my colleagues had gone through and the protesting people verbally abusing staff as they left work should be ashamed of themselves. Throughout my time in nursing I ve been stressed, understaffed, treated like a second class citizen, abused and assaulted but have never seen anything like the scenarios that went on during Covid. My next door neighbour, a fit and active 95 yr old died from Covid after being taken to a care home from hospital. I m 67 and I still work part time for NHS but I fully understand why Drs and nurses no longer want to work there and why they need a decent pay rise…..it seems memories are very short !

@Panic71 I remember the look of the parents. Scarred faces from the masks. Looking exhausted. One came 3 hours late and we just stayed with their child until they arrived. We knew. Nothing good was happening.

I felt we had the backs of our colleagues in the nhs. I’m sure that parent was so grateful knowing her child was being cared for by you x