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.

@BeijingBikini

You can see the Imperial estimates here:

mrc-ide.github.io/covid19estimates/#/total-infected

For what it’s worth their estimate of the Dutch infection rate has turned out to be bang on with the amount found to be positive when tested at random for antibodies (via blood banks). Their methodology is very sophisticated.

It was almost as if they were an inconvenience

I think this attitude permeates the NHS. One of the great things about health insurance is that the relationship between patient and doctor is not supplicant or indigent. It is customer expecting service. If you don't like the service? You switch doctors. The fawning gratitude thing is BS. But then, no other country emulates the UK model. The way in which it is treated with quasi religious devotion is very strange .

So you will stay home then, ok. Good.
I will follow the correct protocol by not going to public places whilst infected and using the appropriate channels to seek help if necessary. I’m glad there are staff at A&E preventing suspected Covid patients from entering. There were lots of elderly and vulnerable people in there who’d had accidents and falls - one selfish twat with Covid could kill them all.

treating people like lepers because they have a cough is not acceptable
It’s common sense to keep people who are suspected of having a killer virus away from those who have no symptoms. Particularly when those people are elderly and vulnerable. It’s not “treating people like lepers”. It’s infection control and isolating suspected cases.

The way in which it is treated with quasi religious devotion is very strange

I get what you're saying, but then I do think it is this countries great achievement. If you understand its roots and how it was a great game changer in this countries history, along with slum clearance and public housing.

I do believe in the NHS and I fully support a public health service, but there is a kind of old fashioned discipline that's been lost I think

Didn't Italy's spread start in hospitals? I think that's the problem. It only takes one patient (or healthcare worker) to unwittingly bring Covid to the hospital.

Possibly areas with low numbers of cases (Devon, Cornwall, North Yorkshire, etc) could trial starting non Covid work again.

Really, at least for most of the UK, a policy of more haste, less speed is the least bad option.

There are more sick people than in the country than people who have covid? That’s not a revelation surely?

This thread is about CV and the nos. being admitted. It has developed into questioning why and it has been advised that routine appts. have been cancelled and yet CV patients are not being admitted. Read the opening post. No doubt that doesn't go along with your narrative that lockdown is unnecessary, next you will dismiss the death toll and bay for the schools to be reopened in your next post.

I can actually well believe that some areas are super quiet. Even in Scotland, I don’t know how many people are typically on ICU but there are apparently 175 today. Out of a country of 5’million people it doesn’t seem an amount that would have the country on its knees? Plus all of them might not be in ICU due to COVID anyway

Ezira and if you are made to wait two hours plus and you have a family member really struggling you’ll wait. Ok great. It’s not always timely. Read more on people who have been left too late. You still would though. Ok.

Obviously no one turns up with just a cough.

To be clear though if the NHS is coping and not overwhelmed this is good news. I’d rather have capacity that isn’t needed in the end than not have the capacity and be swamped.

Hospitals are empty because they are not admitting cv19 patients unless they literally cannot breathe. As a result they are dying at home. The two are interrelated.

This is what concerns me. Is the reason we don't see pictures of overcrowded hospitals like Italy and Spain because we aren't actually taking people in to treat them? It's very worrying to hear so many people saying 111/ambulance service won't take people to hospital until they're literally blue in the face. Is it like the whole thing where you don't dare to go to A&E because of all the messages that have been drummed into us that it is wasting NHS resources unless we have a limb hanging off?

I have no connection to the NHS and know there are many, many health professionals doing everything they can to save Corona patients, but the thought that people might die because treatment has been left too late is very scary.

That's without even touching on all the care home/community deaths that are not recorded, or people not attending hospital for non-Covid cases. I think the most revealing statistics are going to be those that show the difference in death rate for the current period compared to the average for the time of year. The ones recently released were truly horrifying - 6000 more deaths than usual in one week.

The NHS was wonderful. It still has many amazing, dedicated, hardworking staff, and does fantastic things, saving many lives. But it's really not the best. Certainly not anymore. I'd like the German or Australian model. Not perfect, but I think better than what we currently have. The problem with the NHS is also not solely a matter of funding. It's been badly mismanaged for decades. By all political parties.

Maybe I'm cynical but when I read stuff like this in MSM, it always seems like some Tory-commissioned piece to make us feel guilty and more compliant/less questioning of the lockdown situation

As far as I could tell the doctor wasn't a Tory and seemed more left wing.

My point wasnt about politics though it just seemed the doctor had a kind of whiny attitude. Yes I know its stressful but it seemed unprofessional and the comments made about his/her patients cold and inappropriate

A high death rate and claims of empty wards certainly raise the suspicion that care is being too severely triaged by 111.

The nearest large general hospital to me has 24 "hot" wards across two sites. Several of my friends works there are say its very busy. I'm in the West Midlands, which is a hotspot.

they’re too afraid to go to A&E in case some selfish cunt wanders in with coronavirus.

Selfish cunt...nice.

So what exactly is someone supposed to do if they can’t breathe properly and are being fobbed off. Not being able to breathe is actually an emergency that people are allowed to seek medical help for without being called selfish cunts.

Miggins you’re right. On both accounts. The aggression and the general point.

Yes blueangel
West Midlands/Birmingham and also Sheffield have always been hotspots. I've been following the numbers and stats for a long time and they were often higher, by percent of population, than London

People are avoiding accessing healthcare because they think the system is just pressure and they don't want to take resources.

Of course people who are struggling to breathe need attention, whatever the reason. News the other day included a child who had died of asthma as parents delayed getting help.

So people who don't want to suffocate to death are selfish? I mean why don't we close the NHS then, it's selfish to expect any treatment for anything

16,509 people lost from just 4.41% of the population infected.

That would be a horrendous death rate, but then the erstwhile Scottish CMO said a couple of weeks ago she reckoned there were around 400000 cases in Scotland

Who knows

People who are struggling to breathe obviously need medical help. But they shouldn’t be permitted to expose others to their infection in the process of getting that help. There are specified channels for seeking help if you have suspected Covid, and there are staff preventing you from using alternative channels in order to prevent you from putting others at risk. Your need for help doesn’t give you the right to risk the lives of multiple others.

Beijing What we need is for the NHS to treat Covid patients earlier. Take them in before their lips go blue. There's a much greater chance of survival with early treatment. It's awful people are being turned away and not given the help they need. It also indicates we don't actually have good capacity.

I know people who are avoiding hospital less because they're worried about adding to the pressure and more because they don't want to risk catching Covid. It's a difficult balance of risk.

Ezira you do it your way then.

I wouldn’t begrudge anyone from trying to seek help for a family member if they are close to dying and help is delayed. Dying at home due to lack of care whilst hospitals are empty is beyond comment.

If the pathway doesn’t let you down great. If it does well, you can stay at home obviously..

I’m sorry but if I or my family member couldn’t breathe properly, were fobbed off by 111 and 999, so that we couldn’t access these other channels, damn right I’d be going to A and E. Or should people just accept being let down by 111 and 999 and be happy to sacrifice themselves by dying at home?

My sister works on the covid ward and they haven’t had any new admissions in the past few days