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.

I work within ophthalmology

I was in ophthalmology today.
I was the only patient. There were probably 20+ staff (that's a guess I didn't count but I saw 6 different people from receptionist to consultant)

My NDN was the only patient on the Urology ward on The Royal Gwent Newport, THE HOT SPOT IN WALES. The ITU was very busy but the rest of the place was very quiet. I have been talking about it on the threads l normally frequent. Another person said their Dh was the same in his ward.

How very surprising and interesting. I hope that the media does pick up on this thread, it doesn’t get much clearer than hearing it from the horses mouth! @Bitofeverything why have your colleagues been told to keep quiet? How disturbing this all sounds!

For those asking, most of the hard work was at the panic stage. Reconfiguring wards in a few days, moving paediatrics out, ramping up ITU capacity. Massive dictats about moving ALL outpatient nursing staff to inpatient areas that same day, without any thought to throwing all those patients under a bus. Pressure to apply to work in Nightingale with one day notice. ITU did get busy but those nurses are supported by plenty of other experienced nurses helping with IVs and all the physical care needs. One doctor to every ITU bay. Runners everywhere.

It feels embarrassing looking back. At the time I felt it was massive overkill and I remember thinking they must know something I don’t.

One of the good things about it is seeing that the big ol oil tanker can actually be turned around quickly when needed. Most of us won’t put up with all the usual blockers in future. I also think it revealed plenty of useless jobs.

Why is this not being reported on in the news? All we keep hearing about is that hospitals are on their knees and can’t cope

Midwife here. Ward of potentially 44 patients had 8 for most of the day yesterday. For 6 hrs I had nobody to look after. This is UNHEARD of.

A friend in Glasgow describes ITU overflowing and I’ve heard Dundee the same, yet Scotland is said to be less hard hit than England? Must be such regional variation.

Is it because people are not allowed to go to the hospitals unless their condition is very critical? I know someone 60+ with Covid symptoms, confirmed by gp, but denied entry/admission into hospital unless it got serious. I think that's madness.
Not testing at scale. Telling people with symptoms to just stay at home.

This is very reassuring, op, thanks for posting.

I kept apologising for being at A&E and again today but they were absolutely insistant that people must attend A&E and that I had done the right thing.

I have been hearing this, it seems like lack of PPE for staff is more of a problem than sheer ovewhelm of beds. I guess the next two weeks will be critical in showing whether lockdown has really helped infection to fall, and to assess whether hospitals could cope with more, but it sounds like one way or another we still need more testing and much, much more PPE for the people who are dealing with it before we can ease restrictions.

I don't think the media have given the impression that hospitals are full to the brim, just the genuine issue of PPE and resultant staff casualities.

What's so strange is that hospitals - at least in my experience across multiple admissions as a patient - are normally at bursting point.

Nurses running around struggling to get equipment from other wards. Doctors spending half their days trying to wrangle a ward bed or procedure space for their patients.

My last operation was bumped up because the one planned couldn't go ahead because there wasn't a free ICU bed for post-op. I then spent 14 hours waiting in the post-op bay because there wasn't a bed in the hospital, before eventually being moved at 3 in the morning to a ward whose staff had lied about them having no more beds.

The idea of a London hospital operating at anything other than breaking point is totally alien to me!

This is happening in a lot of US hospitals too. I know some medical staff in Colorado that actually got laid off 😓 because the lack of patients

The news has been harrowing about lack of ppe and staff under pressure ( which I don't dispute) then I come on here and read that some places are like this. It's Hard to know what the real picture is UK wide of course.

I'm worried so many people are thinking/ saying drs wont see them. In my surgery yes everyone is triaged on the phone first but if they need to be seen then they are seen in a normal appointment (if they have covid symptoms they are assessed in car park but still seen ) ...

Thank you OP for sharing this with us.

I have had my blood tests and iron injections/platelet transfusions cancelled until further notice. I have aplastic anemia an autoimmune disease. I feel completely run down physically, mentally and emotionally. I cannot wait for a call from the hospital or a letter to reschedule my appointments.

@LilacTree1 I have noticed you on many coronavirus threads and agree with your views a 100%. Could you please link anywhere where they say at press conference that they are well below capacity? Thank you.

The hospital I work at is also at 75% capacity. We normally run at 120% at least. However, staff is also at 75% so we're full in terms of safe staffing levels

I'm also wondering if the beds are empty because 111 is reportedly not calling ambulances for people "unless they're blue in the face" - and people are dying at home/ in care homes.

There was an awful story on the BBC the other day about a father of two (in his 40s/50s iirc) with corona, a care-worker, who went to bed, but was dead the next morning. Never made it into a hospital bed.

This is really interesting.

Not the story the media is portraying. Not that that surprises me.

I had a patient call today, diagnosed with kidney cancer (she has one kidney). I look after her for something else. She tells me it’s operable. Great news I said, when’s the surgery? Oh they (other hospital, south east) can’t schedule her, because: covid. I worry so much about how many are being sacrificed for the perceived covid patient need.

Why are people happy that it’s quiet? Do you think that people not accessing services they need is a good thing?

The excess deaths the ONS shows are not all covid - people are dieing, unnecessarily, of other causes. Paediatricians are already warning of very very sick children not being brought in for treatment. Cancer screenings and services have been massively reduced. This is not a worried well situation.

What is the point of ‘saving the NHS’ if what the actually means us that sick people don’t get treated?

If that's the case for some London hospitals are like I can't imagine the ones in Scotland.

I'm not exactly wishing more people were dying but my god..if I had a family member waiting for cancer treatment or an operation I would be incandescent with rage.

Also my pet hate of the day is how the gov etc keep saying 'we don't know what will happen BUT ITS GOING TO BE SO MUCH WORSE JUST YOU WAIT'

I feel like there will be a bit of sunk cost fallacy in the next few weeks if (hopefully) these trends continue.

Can the ppe from one hospital not be transferred to another, busier one? Or perhaps that's already being done?

Nhs is becoming overwhelmed because those with medical issues are being denied access to treatment

Same here in SE matrons trying to get us to take last month minute leave. I have never seen so many staff in my department.