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.

Flatten the curve never seemed to cut it, didn't seem to elicit the same response, possibly not catchy enough

That does not explain the peculiar emphasis and the reversal of a functioning health care paradigm. Instead of the NHS protecting its patients, the patients are exhorted to protect the healthcare system. By quietly dying at home and not bothering hospitals with their inability to breathe. This is insane. It epitomizes the profound dysfunction at the heart of the NHS which this global pandemic highlights.

chemo patients are being treated in a separate facility, opened up a college next to the hospital.

If you were in immediate danger of dying from something else of course you would elect to go to hospital!

If we lift it tomorrow it will not prevent suicidal people killing themselves or men from beating up their wives. There are strategies in place for those.

The lockdown (if extended, not in its current form) will cause many more to become suicidal. As for those suffering DV, I dread to think. I work in the sector and we've seen a 50% increase. We don't have the funds or capacity to deal with them. There is nowhere safe for them to go.

@Bagels my friend's friend got one for her son with autism. And another friend's friend got one for her epilepsy. These are people I trust - not fake news. It might be different in different primary care trusts but again, that's not good enough at the best of times. Let alone now.

Some hospitals have restructured their timetables for chemo. My BIL has had his dialysis. Got an infection and was admitted. In an area with fewer COVID cases and in a hospital that wasn’t taking Covid patients I believe. Large cities have this luxury. Smaller towns with one hospital don’t.

My friend has cancer ,they have stopped all her chemotherapy ,she was responding well to it
I don’t understand why ,when wards are sitting empty

Very paranoid to suggest posters on MN are 'plants' lying about a lot of hospitals being quiet.

Of course they are. They cancelled most of their usual work. And in March total A and E attendences were 30% less than this time last year and emergency admissions 25% less than this time last year.

That's a lot of empty beds.

Well there are at least 16,500 deaths in UK, What would your plan have been?
170,501 world wide
this is serious.

Not paranoia take posters with a pinch of salt. Makes sense. Especially on a thread like this.

Reading all these posts, I am very concerned that if calling 111 for suspected advanced covid19, that an ambulance won't be sent until you are blue in the face and cannot speak. See earlier post.
Obviously, if you cannot speak, how would you be able to call an ambulance?
My 2 adult DS live separately on their own; there is no one else there to call 111 on their behalf.

Also fine to give numbers but to make spurious claims about lifting lockdown and overreaction I’d give that a wide berth as ungrounded.

@BovaryX

Instead of the NHS protecting its patients, the patients are exhorted to protect the healthcare system.

I can't tell you why the Government decided to use this message, simply that it has. Maybe you could contact your local MP, they may be able to explain the rationale for the use of this particular phrase ?

Hmm. @frumpety Not sure why you are so defensive about my highlighting the peculiar reversal of a functioning health care paradigm which is explicit in that slogan. I am not in the UK. But certainly people should be voicing their concerns over the emphasis being placed on protecting a health care system rather than its patients.

I would rather take note of the Oxford professor as opposed to some rubbish posted on here. Here’s a quick summary of his Newsnight appearance and views.

My sister is a ward sister and she sent me a video of her ward (before she got moved to the Covid ward).

Completely empty. She’s usually on Trauma & Orthopaedics, which makes no sense to me because surely people are still falling, or having accidents?!

Does anyone know how maternity wards are doing? Im due in less than 2 weeks and just beyond terrified of going to hospital for the birth and catching it. Never been so worried! Meant to have my 38 week midwife appointment tonorrow but dont think im going to go

111 has never been fit for purpose. It’s a cost saving measure, to stick Sharon in front of a screen with three weeks basic training. Another “protect the nhs” initiative.

There have always been deaths as a result of incorrect triaging by 111, but usually these could be “hidden“ in the overall stats as there were not too many of them. High profile sepsis cases that made the press could be mollified with words and promises to do better. The world has now changed. This virus is on a huge scale and I imagine the mistakes of 111 and consequences are going to be much harder to hide.

God knows why the paramedics are being so ineffective though. Instructions from above to not admit more than x patients per shift?

chemo patients are being treated in a separate facility, opened up a college next to the hospital.

Maybe in your hospital, but not in ours.

They changed the message to Save Our NHS when the stats from Imperial College and their professor said deaths could be 250,000 if Boris continued with the herd immunity strategy. That’s where it came from. We have developed this overbearing “love” for the NHS instead of being critical friends. We won’t improve anything if we continue like this.

I think the quiet hospitals are masking a lot of activity in the community, particularly social care/residential. There are some potentially grim scenarios ramping up in certain homes and very little PPE.

The fact is that there is a long lead-in time and it’s really hard to predict patient flows. It’s massively different by geography too.

You could ease the lockdown in Cornwall and close the borders and it might be okay..!! They did it in Italy...

Maternity wards are separate everywhere. I believe few pregnant women have died. I can think of one and she was a nurse. Why would you be terrified of having a baby in hospital? Everyone else is as no home births at the moment. I think 35,000 plus babies have been born free from Covid (snd their mums) when I last heard the stats. That’s overwhelmingly safe. More safe than getting other complications.

Oh there’s been this whole “protect the NHS” thing for years. As someone with chronic health conditions I’ve always felt bad for using the NHS, there’s definitely a sort of “you should think yourself lucky for getting any help at all” sort of vibe going on. I don’t know if it’s a political thing or not but it kind of ties into the whole PIP / DLA thing about assessors being told to approach everyone as if they’re lying about being disabled and then getting them to try to prove that they do need the support. We have become a cynical nation of people who don’t like to think sometimes life just shits all over people - poverty, disability etc- for no reason whatsoever and it can happen to any one of us.

The slogan angers me all the time. Protect the NHS is second, before the 'save lives'.
The whole point of the NHS is to save lives.
The NHS should be protecting us, not us protecting NHS

Well yes, the NHS is there to protect the population. However, thanks to the constant running down of services, nationally, they weren’t in any position to cope with the “usual” winter increase in numbers needing treatment in hospital.

Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives had to be enforced for the foreseeable future or else it would have been overwhelmed.