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 don't think it trivialises it, but it could be seen as an overreaction because it is at the direct expense of other things. It isn't like the measures that have been taken aren't causing deaths from other things, if that wasn't the case then it would be seen as universally positive that hospitals are coping well. The fact that people are being turned away who would benefit from earlier intervention is also costing lives, and need not necessarily be the case now it's becoming a bit clearer that hospitals could cope with the criteria for being admitted to lower.

@MrsPworkingmummy

That's so sad to hear. My MIL works in a big north east hospital as has said the same as others on here, that's it empty and they have nothing to do

Worrying but not surprising.
Looking good is more important than doing good, and short-termism rather than long-term strategy is the order of the day. Therefore the government are unlikely to want to use space and resources sensibly just in case Covid deaths go up.
They and the media are reporting all Covid deaths - or perhaps more accurately, all deaths with Covid, or with suspected Covid - but not other deaths.
So unfortunately it is worth the government's while risking non-Covid deaths by underusing or misusing resources, because without digging a bit deeper than the latest headline, people won't find out about those.
We have very short memories, so by the time this crisis is over, few will be digging into the statistics to see whether a balance was achieved, therefore the longer-term implications of the Covid response also don't matter to the government.

@Chipmonkeypoopoo but they do need to staff these wards/departments too its just that it's only urgent cases going in at the moment so there not full it's a fine balancing act all worked out in a very short time and based on predictions. It appears that the flattening is happening so a move to more normal services should be starting soon hopefully. By the way I'm a Labour voter can't stand the Conservative Party but whilst I wholly agree it's their fault the NHS is already stripped back and underfunded they can only work with what they have right now they can't magically undo the damage overnight to deal with the pandemic.

Piggy sadly people die in hospitals every single day, sometimes of hospital acquired infections. No one is minimising these deaths. But Covid isn’t going anywhere fast, it’s going to be around until enough of the population have been vaccinated. So do we put all other healthcare on hold until then? Just like the Country needs an exit strategy for lockdown, the NHS needs an exit strategy for Covid.

Iamapixie have you listened to the press briefings? I ask because the CMO and others have stated yes a balance. Other medical help is a factor and recently gave encouraged non-CV19 people to seek care.

Some will say they are pro economy first, others that they are doing luck down to long and don’t care. The advisors and therefore government know there is a tension and difficult balance with no easy way out.

There have been mistakes, I’m not saying there’s hasn’t been. But on issues of the above it is considered.

This thread trivialises that and makes it seem like it’s all been a big overreaction- try telling that to the families of the people who’ve died.

No, no it does not. One of the prevailing themes here is that people suffering from Covid-19 are not getting hospital admission and not getting treatment - how on earth is that trivialising anything? Please, read the thread properly before emotional kneejerk reactions.

The difference between 1000 maximum deaths per day and 10,000 is one lot of multiplying by 10. Because the virus spreads exponentially unchecked, that would have happened in the same amount of time it took to get from 10 deaths to 100 - roughly 10 days, to make life easier. The acceleration on this is incredible. You think you are coping, and then suddenly, you absolutely are not.

Thank God or whoever we caught this by locking down before the next x 10 occurred. The difference between coping and not coping is a matter of a few days delay. Far better that we stopped on the right side of that cut off point.

That should not be taken that we should go back and do it again and try to get even closer to that tipping point. Because the only way to find out where that tipping point is, is to go past it.

I don't disagree missy and I am one of those people that should probably have been hospitalised quite early on in this whole thing and given some oxygen.

But saying hospitals are quiet and then saying there are people who should be in hospital with their CV symptoms do seem a little contradictory. In other words the curve hasn't flattened at all : there are just oodles of people not presenting to hospitals with quite dangerous symptoms.

I ask myself whether without the CV stuff, I would have gone to hospital/phoned 999 with what I was experiencing 5 weeks ago and I almost certainly would. I had a similar thing in Poland last years and the paramedics came straight out to me.

So, to me, that suggests, yes, the hospitals should definitely have more patients but that is not because the whole thing is overblown.

And SOME posters do come across as insensitive, crass or gung ho about anxieties, fears,and the illness itself.

My brother is a doctor in a hospital in a rural area (won't say where in case it is identifying). He was sent home last week as it wasn't busy at all and it was more dangerous to have staff around potentially spreading Covid with no symptoms than to stay in the hospital. He is back in this week but says he's never seen it so quiet.

The protect the NHS thing is definitely a bit crass but it came out of their researchers at the last election (and famously during Brexit : it's hardly a surprise that Boris' gang are behind this!) telling them how much the British people value and gold dear the NHS. So it is playing in a rather exploitative way to that sentimentalism.

I'd like it if they had added ' so it can protect all of us' . But that's too may words...

many

I'm expected to protect the service that's there to protect me, but that won't even admit the ill unless they are at death's door.And I will be expected to protect it after this is over, by a raise in taxes and NI and by being expected to put up with usual lack of appointments, because NHS.We need a cross party approach to this, every single party uses the health service for their means and the public fetishises it and this is why we are here

Well said Chardonnay There are myriad, serious dysfunctions with the NHS. Its quasi religious status in the UK means criticism is viewed as heresy. The US system is not the only alternative. Nowhere else on the planet emulates the NHS. This thread, and those on it recounting grim stories of being actively prevented from accessing medical care are just the latest examples of its myriad failures.

Among the scripted questions are is the patient conscious, and are they breathing? If someone had stopped breathing i would have called 999 for immediate help, not called 111 to answer a list of 10 questions!!

You would, but not everyone would. People call 111 when they've found someone in cardiac arrest, so they have to ask those questions to filter them out and send them to 999.

My hospital desperately needs nurses for ITU - if you are bored you could come & help? Lots of teaching occurring to make people safe at a bedside...

Same here too! A&E is quiet and people are dying at home from heart attacks, asthma attacks and strokes are dying at home.

Wow I phaffed up my sentence but you get the gist

Plentiful PPE is the key to this. And widespread testing.

Asymptomatic carriage figures are still unclear and vary between 50% and 80%.

Opening up surgeries and clinics to undifferentiated illness may be fine if the 'behind the frontline trenches' are protected properly.

Personally I wouldn't want to sit in an NHS waiting room any time soon without SD in place.

This is such an important debate, and one we couldn't normally have on MN because of the "fetishisation" of the NHS - (particularly by the Tories when it suits their purpose) - which a poster mentions above.

I just wish this discussion could be more widely read - its like you can see a car crash coming very slowly and you can't stop it.

Anyone answer this question?

The supposed duration of infection and disease progression is 30 days right?

So someone infected on say the 23 March should either be recovered or dead by the 23 of April Yes/No?

So by such simple reasoning if lockdown has worked it should be all over by the end of this week as ye Virus won't be circulating will it|?

The ones in hospital do agree that it is quiet but absolutely like it that way because it means the patients get the care they need.

Hospitals are quite BECAUSE lots of patients aren't getting the care they need!

@SarahInAccounts lots of people will be homeless and starve if they can't go back to work and if millions of jobs/workplaces are shut down indefinitely. You don't get to play Russian Roulette with their lives. At some point lockdown will harm more from other causes than it saves from CV.

I don't understand why they didn't at least keep paedicatrics going? Children are at the tiniest risk from CV

I don't understand why they didn't at least keep paedicatrics going? Children are at the tiniest risk from CV

Children normally fit and well are at the tiniest risk.

Children in hospital won’t be fit and well, so their risk will be much increased.

London is ahead though, time wise. It's been on a steady downward for 7 days whereas other parts of the UK haven't

It simply isn't true that London is ahead of everywhere else time wise.

Birmingham, followed by Sheffield, had a higher number of cases by percent of population.

This is from March

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/birmingham-now-most-coronavirus-cases-21763823

Spotted this article just now , asking questions over increased death rate with this weeks peak rate not all being attributed to the virus.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52361519