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.

Chardonnay - I am fed up with the public narrative, on this thread and elsewhere, that because one or two rural areas might not be suffering, we can therefore ignore the urban areas which are.

Tell me, Chardonnay, do you think it's just fine that over 100 at the last count NHS workers had lost their lives to this? And that we are now, months in from when we first knew, so ample time to get prepared, still expecting them to work with no PPE??

Everything is not just fine
effingterrified

Are you deliberately misrepresenting what posters have said on this thread or are you genuinely unable to comprehend the central themes? Point one. Various posters have said that a family member was seriously ill, struggling to breathe and was actively discouraged from going to hospital. Point two, surgeries have been cancelled causing a serious backlog and this will negatively affect patients. These are serious issues which should be discussed. You seem determined to distract from both of these critical points. Why?

What does PPE have to do with some hospitals being quiet? There's another thread about hospital staff (well, who knows if they actually are) moaning about people donating stuff.

noraclavicle, I'm going to ignore your goady posts. Luckily, this thread is coming to an end, and I certainly won't be starting a new one.

BovaryX - those are 2 of the themes discussed but not the only ones.

I don't recall when you were made Thread Mistress?

Feel free to discuss those themes - I have been discussing the theme related to the OP, that lockdown should be lifted soon as it was so quiet.

The OP has probably (quite sensibly) legged it for her own sanity

Nothing to see here ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/business-52363531?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5e9efdba3fc69e0661630628%26Twitter%20says%20it%20has%20no%20evidence%20linking%20UK%20government%20to%20fake%20NHS%20accounts%262020-04-21T14%3A13%3A53.659Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:301c440d-3495-46cb-bc36-8587bdf41789&pinned_post_asset_id=5e9efdba3fc69e0661630628&pinned_post_type=share

My (not terribly difficult to understand) point was that clearly it was not that quiet and things were not going that well or the nurses in my local hospital would not still be required to wear plastic aprons in place of PPE and 2 of them would not have died.

I don't see why this is so hard to follow.

So much love for the lockdown on Mumsnet. Anyone suggesting things could be improved or v rationalised gets shot down.

Isn't this true. It's so weird.

Weetam68 -

Why are you ignoring the central themes of this thread? Does it not concern you if seriously ill patients are being actively discouraged from medical treatment?

’Where are they all?? Maybe at home afraid to come in’

NurseJaques that may be a part of it, but I’m sure the reasons are pretty varied and complex. But given that there were 8,000 excess deaths, 77% above average in the week up to April 10th (according to ONS statistics out yesterday), not all attributable to Covid, we need to find out and address the issues as far as possible and as soon as possible...

MarginalGain - yes, it's so weird that parents with children could be concerned for their safety.

This is for you - and I don't give these out often.

www.hsj.co.uk/acute-care/nhs-hospitals-have-four-times-more-empty-beds-than-normal/7027392.article

Many, many hospitals are 'quiet'.

They've cancelled most of their usual work and A and E attendances and emergency admissions are dramatically reduced in comparison to this time last year.

March 2020 A and E attendance down 30% in comparison to March 2019 and emergency admissions in March down 25% in comparison to March 2019.

It's not a Tory lie or posting as MNetters, it's the reality.

NurseJ yes regional discrepancy will play a huge part.

If you are one of the locations that is a hot spot it is easy to see ambulances will be the first to be strained.

BovaryX - why are you ignoring one of the central themes of the thread, that of the dangers of lifting the lockdown too early?

Don't you care about all the lives that could be lost if that occurs?

Once again the issue is people receiving poor to non existent care. Dying at home in blunt terms.

It doesn’t help them that capacity is under.

In big cities at least, couldn't some hospitals have been designated for Coronavirus and some not? That would lessen the possibility of catching it in hospital and urgent non-Corona treatments could all take place in a non-Corona centre. I don't know, I'm just rambling.

@effingterrified why do you think posters on here are lying? No one has said it's a great big conspiracy and everything is fine and dandy. No one is saying that it's not true that there are severe shortages of PPE.

I work for a large London hospital trust. The two hospitals in it have well over a hundred empty beds between them on top of lots of wards that have been completely closed. There are redeployed staff who don't have that much to do as they are all concentrated in a few areas. We've seen a lot of CV patients and had a lot of deaths. But equally a lot of services are closed and there are far less strokes / MI's presenting, so where are they going? Clearly they are still happening, but people have been put off seeking help so I fear they are staying at home and are either dying there or are presenting far too late so the chance of them surviving is hugely reduced.

I'm in the community, and am witnessing people leaving hospital far sooner than they would normally, as they want to clear beds (even though there are lots available). We can't do ongoing rehab right now, so those people will be safe at home, but that's it.

We'll see that fall out of this for years.
(And I want make it clear that I support and am complying with lockdown).

Indeed, in Italy, they are brought into hospital.

But if they die at home or in a care home, they will not be added to the official figures.

So there is no move to bring them in.

Plus in many parts of the country, there is not the capacity to do so.

This is what I've been saying for a long time...in that multiple people working for the NHS actually have little to do as wards are closed and operations not taking place etc.

effingterrified

‘Goady’ - from someone who’s lied about my posts and not answered the request to link to any saying what you’ve claimed I’ve said.

’Why are you ignoring the central themes of this thread? Does it not concern you if seriously ill patients are being actively discouraged from medical treatment?’

BovaryX well indeed. Easier to deflect and ramp up the hysterics than engage with the actual discussion.

My (not terribly difficult to understand) point was that clearly it was not that quiet and things were not going that well or the nurses in my local hospital would not still be required to wear plastic aprons in place of PPE and 2 of them would not have died.

The global shortage of PPE is tragic, yes. However I don't really see how that is a reason for hospitals who do (apparently) have capacity to not lower their threshold for someone being admitted; from blue in the face to struggling to breathe and could really do with some help. The narrative that all hospitals are line warzones is also putting people off going to A&E when they really should. It's not been a debate saying that all nurses are sat on their arses and it's lies about PPE etc, but considering the options and what can be done to save more lives.

Apologies - we had some privacy concerns about this thread and we took it down in order to edit out some potentially identifying details. It's back now.