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.

Which hospital?

People aren't saying that lockdown was wrong, that it should be eased prematurely or that there was an overreaction.

What I and other people are doing is stating facts that in some parts of the country there is less demand on NHS services than others. That's not being a government troll, it is just stating a fact.

In some parts of the country, therefore, it is right and appropriate for more routine/elective care to start to be planned where safe.

*second wave. Bloody phone typos. I'm always iffing instead of offing too.

ToffeeYoghurt - exactly, the nature of the OP made me somewhat sceptical, especially given the timing.

I am sure that not all parts of the UK have been affected equally. But there is a huge massive fucking jump from acknowledging that, to saying, as the OP does, that because cases are low in their particular area, that we should therefore move to end lockdown asap.

That is highly irresponsible and I am sceptical that any genuine HCP would suggest this.

The OP, incidentally, has not returned.

This is my NHS trusts position as of today. Total empty beds is I think between 450-500. No conspiracy, just a crazy time . We are still predicted a 'surge' but unclear how far off that is and with less dramatic numbers but going on for longer. Hard to imagine when we will get back to 'normal' or how the NHS will recover

The thing is we have hot spots and cold spots in the UK. But we cannot say eg oh Lincolnshire, you crack on we are lifting the lockdown here. We have to work as a nation to protect all so as galling as it is when you know you do not live in a hot spot we have to grit our teeth and work for the greater good.

I just know if the government lifted lockdown on some areas but told London, Birmingham, Manchester etc. to stay locked down that would not work. The county gangs would be on the road within half an hour. Closely followed by the terminally stupid exiting these lockdown zones.

The number of unexplained additional deaths being reported is a real worry, and it was predicted it would happen.

Hopefully a lightly new balance can be struck.

I think my GP surgery is very quiet based on the ease with which I got an appt (usually next to impossible) and with a doc straight away rather than the nurse (unheard of!) and the way they kept saying please do get in touch if you need anything...

Leighhalfpennysthigh - READ THE FUCKING OP BEFORE COMMENTING.

The OP explicitly says (last paragraph):

"I think we can / should start to move back to normal life soon".

This is repeated by other posts.

This is what I am responding too.

FFS, this is exhausting. Are people genuinely incapable of reading the
OP??????

Justasking yep re difficulty with hot and cold spots

And yes to this from Toffee
It's not about Covid trumping other treatments. It's that a non Covid patient would be very vulnerable to catching Covid at hospital. They could also be unknowingly infected with it - and risk infecting the whole ward, patients and staff. That's the impossible situation

I just know if the government lifted lockdown on some areas but told London, Birmingham, Manchester etc. to stay locked down that would not work.

Realistically I don’t see how they could, without 24/7 roadblocks & checkpoints & police on every train and bus..

FFS, this is exhausting. Are people genuinely incapable of reading the
OP??????

It seems so, because you’ve just changed the meaning of it by quoting ’I think we can / should start to move back to normal life soon’ and missed off the rest of the sentence ‘for the well young people among us.’

Btw, you also missed my previous post about the OP.

Now, about that adult, exaggeration-free discussion of a serious health-issue..

Won’t there be a second wave anyway? Unless we want to stay locked down until a vaccine? I don’t think we should end lockdown right now but if at the beginning of June the stats look ok then some relaxing of measures would make sense. A second wave in August (and hopefully with more testing etc) would be better than October?

So there’s a lots of near empty hospitals but also lots of people in care homes that are being left to die?? (According to what I’ve seen on here)

I understand your thinking Leigh I think it's possibly the way to go - when it's safe to do so. We could consider a regional approach with (initially limited trial) return of non Covid procedures in the less affected parts of the UK. Awful as it is for those of us in the worse affected areas, it won't help us by insisting the more fortunate areas unnecessarily limit procedures. Sharing the misery won't make things better for anyone. It also means medical staff from the safer areas might be free to travel to the worse hit Covid areas at a later stage to assist with backlogs there.

Not sure what the anti-Semite racist stuff is all about? I haven't read all the posts since last night. Fwiw Israel (and other countries in that region) have taken a much stricter approach than us. They put in place a tougher border control with passengers quarantined, and I think lockdowned at an early stage. The same with the gulf states and Saudi Arabia. Let's keep racism and prejudice out of our discussions please.

Do most countries have border controls now and quarantine apart from us?

A premature end to lockdown and the consequent second would cause far greater long-term economic damage than the short-term disruption of a slightly longer initial lockdown. The economy won't be healthy or have any chance of recovery if we had widespread illness and deaths across the UK.

I don’t disagree with most of what you say there, ToffeeYoghurt but the statistics indicate that we already have ‘widespread illness and deaths across the UK‘ - the week leading up to April 10th saw 8,000 more than is normal for the time of year & the highest since 2000 - many of them outside hospital.

What’s really worrying me and others on here is that a proportion might well have been preventable. There have to be questions moving forward if the (quotes for the sake of the conspiracists) ‘anecdotal’ evidence of quieter-than-expected hospitals and the ‘anecdotal’ issues with 111 and 999 is to he addressed to improve those outcomes.

ToffeeYoghurt the anti-Semitic reference is to John O’Connell, who has been linked to here with the OP and other posters with the insinuation that they’re not genuine. The same poster has decided I’m not genuine either.

Btw, I tend to strongly dislike excusers of anti-Semitism, which is why I’m not keen on John O’Connell. But he was shoehorned into the thread, not by me. I was trying to warn against taking him at face-value, ironically in response to the poster who said most of us shouldn’t be trusted because they don’t have our names, addresses and job-titles.

Delatron Many countries do have some form of border control and/or quarantine. Obviously there's America. Others include India, Russia, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore. Many places including some in Europe have stricter lockdowns too, and some have mandatory face masks in public.

We could avoid a second wave, or at least drastically limit its impact, by continuing for longer with the first one. That could allow enough time to lessen the spread, and also buys us time to allow for more progress on the vaccines and treatments. Several treatments continue to show promise but stocks are limited. We need to wait for more to be produced (hopefully our government has learnt from the PPE shambles and has put in an advance order). Of course, places like London and other airport cities will face a second wave unless all non essential flights are stopped. So only freight, medical and military. With checks and quarantine if necessary.

Avoiding (a bad) second wave is very much about remembering more haste, less speed.

My hospital is super quiet too. We are being told to not do face to face non essential stuff for likely 6 months plus and new guidance come out on how to work remotely only etc.

I guess the main thing is to reduce transmission. We need to get the RO value low in hospitals and care homes to even begin taking control. Starting up face to face input will increase contacts. It feels wrong but we are also doing a good thing by doing nothing.

There's no way in my hospital we can have normal services split across red and green sides - we don't have space or infrastructure. There's no 'other covid hospital' as we are the only hospital for over an hour. So what do we do?

To be fair @NurseJaques , the population of Lincolnshire is what ? about 750,000 or a bit more ? And quite spread out. I wouldn't imagine you would be experiencing the same as a hospital in a more compact urban environment. What does your bed capacity normally run at ? Are electives cancelled in normal flu season ?

Well said, Toffee Yoghurt.

We need to plan carefully before lifting the lockdown.

That means making sure that this time, the tests, contact tracers and PPE are all in place before we lift the lockdown.

We are clearly not at that stage yet.

*Gruffwoah, there was video on the News At Ten last night of hospitals run off their feet.

You know there are other sources of info than anonymous posters on a MN thread, right?*

Erm yes, hence why I said don't take facts from Mumsnet or most of the internet. Pretty sure I didn't mention the news? I am not based in a hospital but so I have no idea, I know about the internet though and how whatever someone is saying could be false, on either side of the we are busy, no we aren't.

My thinking is what’s the point in us all being locked down, not at school and work etc. Then continuing to have flights coming in from all over the world plus no quarantine.

When other countries such as Australia and NZ etc have been successful at closing their borders. I wish we’d been stricter on this then the lockdown wouldn’t have to be so long.

Oh I agree completely nova people being turned away from hospital or refused assistance from 111 in emergencies (Covid or not) is extremely concerning. That should not be happening especially given hospitals are apparently so quiet (even in one part of London according to OP). As for what's happening in care homes, it's sickening.

I need to get some work done so I'll step away from the John O Connell stuff. I've no idea who he is but I will say that sometimes even the nastiest, racist, most despicable of people can (occasionally) be right about something. I'm not the sort to deny the sky looks blue because someone nasty thinks so too.