Boris in ICU

[PicsInRed]

Oh Boris no 🙁

Thanks for that info Rino, it's reassuring.

I think looking at the guy's blog he does clarify in the comments that the decision to not ventilate his brother was made in advance, before he even had a need for one. So I guess he is saying that his brother was denied a ventilator, but not because one wasn't available. It isn't clear in the original post. He also mentions that they feel a DNR was forced upon his brother without proper consultation or discussion with anyone which sounds very worrying. His brother had Down's syndrome. I don't understand what happened but clearly it wasn't just about non availability of ventilators.

The decision not to ventilate or generally treat someone who has disabilities or is elderly is a whole different issue, regardless of what the illness was. It did not mean that the man who lost his brother was lying, or that he's not deeply upset.

It seems extremely unkind to call him a liar.

I don't think he's a liar, but he deliberately tried to make it sound as though his brother died because he was denied a ventilator due to there not being enough. It must be horrible to lose a brother but with the best will in the world I can't see what Boris Johnson being hospitalised with cv has to do with it.

I don't get why people get their kicks in trying to make a bad situation worse. Even if this guy isn't a troll and has actually - very sadly - lost his brother. Why would you shout about their being no ventilator, when surely he would have been told the truth.

Like the journalists in the press conference - why are they trying to find a 'story' in who's leading the Govt. Obviously not a good situation at the moment, but it seems that the Cabinet have it in hand, so why try to pick holes?

*there

Either the governement is covering up how sick Boris is or he is getting preferential treatment by being admitted to an ICU
Its very rare for anyone to be on ICU just receiving face mask oxygen and especially so considering the pressure on ICU beds atm.

I think in a democracy a well functioning press has a moral duty to challenge and question the actions taken by government. Who wants our press to be a merely mouthpiece for the government just parroting what they say ? I don’t see what the issue is. I hate that any questioning leads to accusations of disloyalty and undermining the national cause. I mean wasn’t the whole Brexit thing about holding our elected representatives to account ?

I fear he's much worse than they are letting on. Hope he gets better.

"His brother had Down's syndrome."

Sadly, people with DS are often not given the same quality of treatment as those NT

It's not specific to COVID at all, but those I know with DS in the family seem perpetually in fight mode, because of bitter experience

@reesewithoutaspoon Yes I have had face mask oxygen on a general ward. I suspect he is more ill than they are saying.

That’s shocking bigchoc

Stable and responding to treatment is the news today concerning the PM.
I've a feeling he'll pull through this but take a long while to fully recover.

Going by the reports from others who have had this virus and ended up in hospital it takes weeks to stop feeling tired and just be able to do the day to day things let alone try and run the country!

MayFayner The original UK guidelines for choosing who should have ventilators in the event of a shortage included some SN and LDs as factors that could exclude people.

Disability rights campaigners immediately objected and the guidelines were changed
However, if they hadn't noticed and objected .....

It all sadly fits in with what the eugenicists think.

It is medically unethical to give a treatment that has no prospect of working. It is medically unethical to cause suffering with no purpose to that suffering. It is medically unethical to act outside the best interests of the patient, even if that patient wants the treatment that is not in their best interests.

Ventilation is invasive. It introduces a foreign body to the trachea (wind pipe) and then the mucous that builds up in the lungs has to be sucked up out of that tube. The mucous sits around in the tube and bugs can form. Nasty bugs. Bearing in mind that many people who have Coronavirus may well already have bugs in their mucous because they've contracted an opportunistic pneumonia from having the virus.

Ventilation is painful and distressing. Patients are given drugs to sedate them and drugs to stop the pain, but they need to be used very carefully, because those drugs themselves can cause bad side effects. So the drugs have to be carefully adjusted (titrated) according to the patient's consciousness levels and the way their body is responding to the drug. It isn't an exact science, so patients can go into and out of deeper and lighter levels of consciousness than is ideal. They can have dreams and memories from ventilated time, which will never, ever, make sense. If they survive, they may learn a 'rationale' for their experience, but it won't take it away.

If a medical team has come to the conclusion that a patient won't benefit from ICU care, it will be because the cost (in human terms) of having the treatment will outweigh the benefit to the patient.

All the time in normal times, patients are given options and given a prognosis. For example, a patient may be told that the only way to get them off of a ventilator is to have a tracheostomy. For one patient, that may be acceptable as the 'cost' of survival. For another patient, they may decide that a tracheostomy is not something they are willing to have and they opt for palliation (care that is aimed at symptom relief but not cure). It is a valid option that some patients choose to take.

We need to stop thinking of Intensive Care as some benign 'next step' in a treatment plan. It isn't. It's hugely invasive, lifesaving but life-altering treatment.

And it can take a really long time to recover from even fairly short term ventilation, both physically and mentally:

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/the-road-to-recovery-for-covid-19-patients

After my DD was admitted to PICU with a (rare reaction to a common) virus it took almost a whole year to get back to school full time. 18 months on and she’s still struggling with post trauma mental health stuff.

Lots of info on life after adult ICU (non covid patients) here:

www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD012701/full?cookiesEnabled

As far as frequent updates, think we're all the product of the 24/7 news and needing to have information when quite simply, there isn't any.

The need for frequent updates is also reminiscent of the war time generation. Being quiet when the hourly news came on the radio was absolutely sacrosanct in our household, until sometime like the mid-sixties when my parents at long last realised that most bulletins were a repetition of earlier ones.

peregrina I don't remember hourly news during the war. It was 8am, 1pm, 6pm and 9pm.

@Dongdingdong
Instead of critiquing someone’s choice of word, stop being so damn petty and try seeing the bigger picture

It's not petty to the sick and bereaved who find the term and analogy upsetting.

There are lots of words and analogies other than 'fighter' and 'brave' and other lazy colloquialisms that can be used that would not upset anyone. If people are too dim or insensitive to think of and use others to avoid possibly upsetting people who are already suffering then that is a reflection on them, not me for pointing it out.

I work with people with LTC's including cancer, and their families - 'fighter, strong, brave' as terms frequently come up as something they find upsetting. It's not me who needs to see the bigger picture, it's you.

And actually. whilst `I'm still sorry for Boris and wish him well, I'm finding it a bit shit that the entire country seems to be worried sick about him, but no one is mentioning the 15 plus Drs, Nurses and HCP's and 14 plus transport staff who have died due to a lack of PPE the government were advised to get in way back in January. I'm actually more worried about them and their poor families than a man who to an extent contributed to his own current predicament by making some really shit decisions.

starlightgazers I agree. Boris is almost deified now.

I'm concerned for key workers that are poorly or recovering or sadly lost their life.
It's tragic and horrible and I wished there was something I could do.
I was shocked to hear about Boris too. There isn't sadness or worry for one person over another in this strange times. He should have followed his own guidelines more and I think the 'gung ho ' attitude didn't help at first as people thought ' it's ok , it won't affect me it's only the flu' etc etc. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and maybe even he regrets this now. Who knows?

I am grateful that people are willing to go into the front line in order to make others better or work in places that are needed too. They are also risking their life as well.

It's bloody awful.

I'm going to work as I have no choice, I realise the chances are that I am going to get it. I don't know if I'll survive it and if I don't I will have children including one who is disabled who will have no one. Also, if/ when we get it, we know what is coming - we've seen it. I have a strong sense of duty, but my first should be to my DC's, not the NHS. The lack of PPE and and disorganisation around isolation off cases has been and still is shocking, and it jus heart breaking to see colleagues dying, many young and healthy, and no one giving too much of a shit whilst the country weeps and prays for Boris, who to a large extent is responsible for the death of our HCP's.