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.

She is a palliative care doctor. Her working day will consist of supporting those sadly dying by prescribing painkillers and anti emetics. A critical care environment even on a good non pandemic day would have been a shock to her system.

Mercurio and ITV should've collaborated with an actual Critical Care Consultant who wrote a blog to get a more balanced view. One who isn't a vocal leftie, just you know for a bit of impartiality.

It'd be like Sue Gray and Starmer writing an ITV drama about 'partygate'.

It was a global problem. Supply and demand..

My DD worked in the NHS (as a student and as a PT adult social care worker) during the Pandemic.
Her PPE, nursing CV patients was a mask that she was told to use for multiple patient visits, i managed to get her hand sanitizer and some ffp2 masks that i was given for my then job.

So the issues on PPE, people unable to see loved ones and staff getting and dying from CV was all accurate.

The series, as the credits say, was made with additional help from many other NHS staff.

But if i remember correctly, you re a very strong right wing Johnson supporter, so i doubt you even see any issue with the way the Pandemic was handled at all.

It was a global problem. Supply and demand..

Rubbish.

The UK had a specific supply issue, due to PPE stocks being run down during austerity.

We should have been ordering this stuff in January and February, instead, we were telling Hospitals and CH's "Don't worry, no community transmission...."

https://www.itv.com/thismorning/articles/the-inspiring-real-life-medics-behind-itvs-new-covid-drama

Do you also suppose that the anaesthetists on this thread are lying?

Purchasing counterfeit PPE while ignoring bona fide suppliers who weren’t on the VIP list was a global problem?

You work for the DHSC don’t you.

One thing that used to piss me off about Johnson and his cronies during all this was his insistence that everything was 'world beating '. Our response, our vaccine etc.
We didn't need it to be world beating. We just needed it to work.
I see that now he's back crawling up Trump's arse despite all his posturing about Ukraine. Zelensky is just a photo of for him.

Janiie is a Johnson fan girl .

I have been on many partygate threads with Janiie, "she knows people"

And she is one of Johnson's staunchest defenders.

Do you think she attended any of their parties? … while the rest of us followed their rules. Or perhaps benefited from lucrative contracts while I was removing shoddy PPE from covid wards?

She certainly thinks they didn't do anything wrong and she she knows NHS staff, teachers who partied their way through

But I don't want to derail the thread any further

You're supposed to discuss the topic of the op not critique posters you know.

I am not frontline NHS staff so cannot discuss experiences.

I do believe the real life experiences from posters on here and Dr Rachel Clark

I don’t think Janiie will ever listen to the real life experience of people who were there on the frontline. She will keep on blindly repeating the same narrative she has been fed, despite what anyone (who was there and really knows what happened) says.
Id much rather read the experiences of frontline staff on this thread. That’s what it was intended for.

I know plenty of people who worked on the front line, in the 'red zone' in different hospitals.

Try and discuss the programme rather than criticising posters who have a different opinion to you. It is ok to hve a different opinion you know.

I absolutely agree it was a tough time but it was the same globally, it wasn't all the Tories fault. Many things went well, like quadrupling critical care capacity to manage the surge and prevent the NHS being overwhelmed.

Id much rather read the experiences of frontline staff on this thread. That’s what it was intended for.

Well stop quoting me then! Just ignore me?

I've heard many different experiences from actual critical care staff, I've every right to contribute thanks and perhaps offer a bit of balance to some comments, it is a chat forum afterall where debate is the point.

Mnhq delete anything that breaks TGs so do report me if i say anything offensive.

Those of us who actually worked on the frontline of health and social care know the truth. Second hand stories mean nothing. Of course anyone can say anything online. I could be lying, anyone could be lying. The stories I know are mirrored across the U.K. Janiie’s experiences don’t resonate with me. I do know some areas managed the covid response better than others. Whether that was due to resources, management or population and demographics, I do not know.

'Janiie’s experiences don’t resonate with me'

My experiences? All I've said is it was the same everywhere. Ppe of course in short supply. It was globally. I've also said the NHS managed the surge by quadrupling critical care capacity. Not sure what is controversial about these comments?

It was a tough time yes, there was a pandemic. I just don't believe a palliative care doctor who is a leftie was best placed to be the source of the itv drama.

It's triggered horrific memories of that time, and highlighted the HUGE risks we were taking with our and our families lives, all because we had no option but to put our faith in the management and government.

When you worked in the NHS, there was NO option to refuse to work, you would simply be fired, at a time when no-one was hiring at all. Therefore, the choices were, risk your life (and your families lives), or end up unemployed, unable to pay your bills, and eventually on the street homeless.

And for us having to work through, and bear witness to the atrocities that we were complicit in carrying out under the guise of 'policy' (e.g sending elderly residents back to full care homes without testing knowing full well the risks and threat to life involved or not receiving the correct or out of date PPE, refusing family any contact with the dying, because we were told to) and under constant threat of severe sickness or potential death due to lack of proper equipment and lack of management support for staff welfare, as well as living daily with the unbearable work pressure, severe staff shortages, guilt and terror, do you know what we got ?

We got a small stone, with a rainbow painted onto it, a couple of sweets and a 'commemorative' coin ! Oh, and 'applause' from the public. (I personally also received lifelong sickness/disability from Long Covid and PTSD)

I can now only work in a very limited capacity, due to these disabilities, and now my managers are trying everything they can get rid of me, because I'm not 'adaptable' to be sent to work anywhere they want to put me at a moments notice !

So they abuse you mentally, physically and emotionally, then get rid of you asap. (But would be the 1st ones on the phone to 'welcome' you back if Covid resurged again !)

How do you think we feel about it ? How would YOU feel ?

Yes, same here. Doesn’t resonate at all with me and what happened in my hospital and what I saw first hand.
Along with the bad stuff, I did see such a lot of bravery and absolute professionalism which will stay with me too.

Johnson and his slogans - every evening the same rhetoric. I would love to have my students analyse his speeches for persuasion if wasn’t so disgusting that he used words to disguise the truth of what was happening.

I've also said the NHS managed the surge by quadrupling critical care capacity. Not sure what is controversial about these comments?

The NHS attempted to manage the surge by quadrupling critical care capacity.

Fixed it for you Janiie.

Of course you also need experienced staff (and not falling over from exhaustion), O2 supplies, PPE...