The hospital I work in is so quiet

[QuietHospital]

London hospital.
Half empty. Some wards have less than a handful of patients, some wards are closed. Most staff have been moved to wards so are falling over selves. While their regular work goes undone.
A&E very quiet. I’ve sent patients there who are seen immediately. The heart attacks, strokes and appendicitis cases are presenting too late. People with covid are waiting too long to present. If you get breathless then for goodness sake come in. I’m so cross at the initial advice to stay home until struggling.
Had a look through covid ward lists and vast majority patients are aged over 70. Hardly any patients under 60, those who are have underlying health problems for the most part. Lots more men than women affected.
It’s just a snapshot but echoed by colleagues in other hospitals.
I think we can / should start to move back to normal life soon for the well young people among us. I fear for the short and longer term economic hit. It’s crazy to have all these young well people furloughed or made redundant.

There have been a couple of posts saying people were turned away from A&E with CV19 symptoms

And many saying they would turn up regardless, as I would too

Can anyone confirm, as a medic, that it’s fine to turn up and you’ll be admitted with CV19 symptoms such as breathlessness? (where 111 would just leave it too late).

I was there last week and it was for non CV patients only. CV patients were directed elsewhere.

Where do they go?

Bovary, it’s all a gradual escalation of “do as you’re told”.

For some of us, “you’ll die” might not work -> so “your loved ones will die” might not work -> so “everyone will die and it’s YOUR fault” might not work -> “protect a national institution in a WAR” is the next, and hopefully, final step, along with competitive clapping.

Can you imagine human beings reacting to the next pandemic? Actually, don’t, it’s too frightening.

The clapping last week was definitely down in my area, people are starting to cotton on maybe.

@Pomegranatepompom but public health England advise 'place based' PPE.... So all acute hospital clinical areas

We have a black and yellow line on floor as you enter wards etc and you can't pass without a mask and you must put on apron and gloves if going within 2m of a patient to provide care that is what PHE recommend

I guess if the government just said stay at home, save lives...it might not be as heart tugging as save the NHS. plenty of people disagree about how dangerous or contagious covid is but most people like NHS and would quite like to keep it.

@Fredthedoggie no thankfully not life threatening.

So sorry to hear about your DH

I take it for you no treatment is a bigger risk than a risk of covid infection.

For the record I think there SHOULD be a plan to start seeing all these cancelled appointments and operations again. But the last few weeks to now was probably the right decision to cancel them

I would agree with others about trying to get covid positive and covid negative hospitals set up BUT until we have much better testing (something that should be a priority) how can we do that?

It's a mess.

Also I may or may not have had the virus over my daughters hospital date. Mild symptoms a few days after it

some of these posts needs to be taken with a pinch of salt - differ so much from the experience in several London trusts.

Please don’t get complacent, I know 2 people who are currently in itu.

The hospitals aren't as busy as they should be because the government want us all to die at home - so they don't have to count those deaths, only the ones that occur in hospital.

The non-treatment or medical of elderly/disabled people is genocide as far as I'm concerned.
Imagine dying in a nursing/care home with no pain relief or medical care.
Imagine having to be a care-assistant on minimum wage dealing with all your clients dying with no chance of help from medics.

And then half of the country on insta moaning about not being able to get their hair cut for a month.

Same at my hospital

@NurseJaques sorry thought you meant gowning and f3 masks.

@terrigrey well said

Terrigrey yep

My ICU (east(ish) England) is at over 3 times usual capacity, we have overflowed into HDU, then overflowed into theatre recovery, and our patients are very, very, sick, and so many are so young. We keep nearly running out of PPE then get a kind private donation.... The wards are very quiet as the elective cases have been cancelled. ICU is well staffed... but with ward nurses supporting, and mostly not got a clue about ICU, so those of us with ICU training are spread very thin. I spent 14 hours in PPE yesterday with one short break. It's bloody awful.

And many saying they would turn up regardless, as I would too
How selfish. So you’d expose all the healthy people who are there with small accidents, cuts, broken bones, and risk giving them all CV? No wonder people are afraid to go to hospital for essential treatment.

Where do they go?
They have a portacabin in the car park for suspected CV patients to be triaged. They weren’t allowed into A&E.

.

I think some GP surgeries panicked early on as well.

I had an asthma review cancelled before lock down (fair enough), but I asked if I could speak to an asthma nurse over the phone because I was changed to a combined inhaler in October. I was very used to my old ones (steroid and long acting bronchodilator) and knew how I could scale up and down, and often would go up to the maximum dose at this time of year (pollen is my main trigger) but don't know for the new medication. The receptionist said they had more important things to deal with, and I'd only get an appointment if had a problem breathing. I was trying to stop myself getting to that point!

In the end I asked a friend who's a GP what the usual advice for this inhaler is, which is just as well, because I've been getting progressively more wheezy.

another reason the wards are empty is that the Care Act has been suspended and there are currently no argument been grass about who pays for what on discharge so all our 'stranded patients' were immediately discharged out to care homes freeing up beds ( we had patients who had been in hospital over a year arguing over who would fun care home!!) The current government legislation suggests that within 3 hours of being declared medically fit to leave hospital, a patient should be discharged either home or to an alternative place of safety. This is working well mostly and I hope some of our new practices will continue as it will massively help us get through the winter months each year.

Lilac
I think there are very serious systemic problems with the NHS which were explicit way before this pandemic. The UK has some of the worst cancer survival rates in the developed world. In functioning countries, the trajectory from doctor to ultrasound to MRI to biopsy is a couple of weeks. What is it in the UK? Stay at home 3protect the NHS? Not stay at home to protect you, your family, your community? What peculiar inverse priorities does that reveal? That the health service doesn't serve the patients but vice versa? It's insane.

The hospitals aren't as busy as they should be because the government want us all to die at home - so they don't have to count those deaths, only the ones that occur in hospital.

The non-treatment or medical of elderly/disabled people is genocide as far as I'm concerned.
Imagine dying in a nursing/care home with no pain relief or medical care.
Imagine having to be a care-assistant on minimum wage dealing with all your clients dying with no chance of help from medics.

And then half of the country on insta moaning about not being able to get their hair cut for a month.

This is it in a nutshell.

For everyone wanting separate covid hospitals... At least 1/3 maybe 1/2 our positive patients came in for a non covid reason!

Eg catheter blocked, fall, confused, abdo pain... Everyone is swabbed in a and e! The short of breath/temp suspected covid are often NOT covid and lots of not suspected covid ARE covid!

Ezira calm down I followed up with a question about where do they go because I want to know.

No I’m not staying home while someone can’t breathe but yes I’d like to know where to go. So sod off with the selfish part.

And it’s not just me saying it is it Ezira?

People are irritating for sure.

Everyone is swabbed in a and e!
I wasn’t 🤷‍♀️
I was obviously there with a broken bone though, no reason to suspect CV.

Our trust (an hour from London) is also running about half empty

How many patients are going to die because of cancelled operations when the NHS already has a dire record for diagnosis and treatment of cancers?