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.

My friend went in for keyhole surgery and two weeks later is in hospital with COVID19. She was staying in, getting shopping dropped off, her family we’re keeping their distance and the likelihood is that she picked it up in hospital. That particular surgeon has now stopped keyhole surgery, but we’re not sure if it’s because he’s a carrier as there has been no further info given. I personally would rather strap my own arm, if I broke it, rather than going into hospital right now. I’m in NI.

I am in the Welsh hotspot. I was diagnosed with the virus by three different doctors over the phone, 2 GP's and an out of hours doctor. We took hours to get through on 111, and when I did the call back was hours. I was most unwell and DH was considering an ambulance. OOH told me not to go to hospital until I could cope no more. DH has since told me that he thought he was going to lose me at one point. I am 49, with a mild heart condition (SVT). This was before lockdown, mid March.

It’s quiet because people are not presenting - as simple as that, people are not less sick.

If they are not presenting because services have been cut that’s a big problem, if they are presenting because they are being blocked by 111 or whatever that’s a scandal. If they are not presenting because they either believe the shite on Twitter or are trying to
‘Save the NHS’ then it’s a tragedy.

All those empty beds could be used for earlier stage covid and then perhaps our outcomes may improve

Yes worth looking at this

It's the same at my London hospital. We were full of COVID a few weeks ago but now wards have closed due to lack of patients, paediatric wards too (zero children with COVID).

It's frustrating as you are used to working at such a pace usually, running around trying to create beds for the hundreds in A&E but attendances have fallen by 80% so no one is coming in.

I can see why there might be reluctance to resume normal service though because we've no idea what will happen when controls start to be lifted plus hospitals are still places where you are very likely to catch COVID. So if you start bringing in transplant, cancer patients etc you may cause a lot of deaths. One of the saddest things has been the number of dialysis patients who have died because they had to come to hospital every few days, caught COVID and many haven't survived it.

You do start to doubt the news and social media reporting when you read threads like this! When they say there’s worse to come’ it won’t be from Covid it’ll be from needless deaths from when people aren’t allowed to access healthcare for other conditions.

@Quitthat In our maternity unit people are being discharged straight from labour ward so the postnatal ward is empty. No one is staying in for some extra breastfeeding support etc. like they would usually.

Babies who would normally be on observations for something, e.g diabetic mother are being sent home and mums told contact us if you’re concerned.

Women with reduced movements are not reporting them anymore, it must still be happening surely?

Women are not turning up for their scans. Women are taking their own blood pressure at home and choosing not to come to appointments.

This makes for a VERY quiet maternity unit that is unheard of and VERY unsettling and worrying.

District nursing in our area in the South East is also quiet. We've got PPE, stopped all health visiting and other services. Everyone is working in district nursing and there is no rush or panic

Glad you started this thread OP as I’m finding the same. I work in a Covid ICU in Scotland and we have less than a handful of patients. Around 150 empty beds in the rest of the hospital.
A month ago there was a huge panic to move ICUs between green and red and massive planning issues however all has completely died down now. I don’t know how the NHS is going to catch up with everything else. I feel like there has been a massive anti-climax which is obviously really good news.

Same here. There were 18 patients In A&E at 6am this morning. I've never seen that ever. We had 5 patients, with three staff. It was a long night!

@pratnav you MUST go to A&E - that's what it's there for - please go.

So at what point should a COVID patient ring 111 or 999 or go to A&E? The advice is confusing.

I'm reading what happens after this. I really don't know how we are going to catch up the backlog of cancelled surgery. We would usually have approx 30 kids a week in for elective surgery. We had a week of doing 12 scoliosis repairs planned, to reduce the waiting lists. That's also cancelled. These kids need their surgery.

Why is this not being reported on in the news?

Probably because people would start rioting when they realise that the whole lockdown, and them losing their job, was a bit of an overreaction by Boris & Neil's dodgy epidemic modelling?

@Indella sorry to risk derailing, but are postnatal services such as the 5 day check etc still going on? Having lost a friend to PND who was identified as needing support, although it wasn't enough it terrifies me if there's little/nothing there at the moment.

OP I can see why it's good news but also frustrating when you know other patients are struggling or somewhat needlessly dying at home, it must be hard :( I guess was it better to be over rather than under prepared?

Maybe our death rate would be better/ similar to Germany if we actually filled these beds and treated people earlier instead of leaving people to die at home or admitting them so late a ventilator with a crap outcome is their best bet.

We still don’t learn from other countries.

We now know that this virus can become serious quite quickly/overnight. Time for a policy change on admissions surely.

OP, write to the CMO. They should consider re-starting other appointments, surgeries etc. It seems crazy.

Delayron yep, it’s not as if we are doing particularly well, eg against Germany.

@totallyfucked

Yep because the surgeon is the only person you have contact with during an admission for surgery and it's not like lots of surgery is being suspended is it?

Youngest daughter has horrible chesty cough, for the last month, we’ve given her our inhalers, when it was at its worst, painkillers at times, vit c and vit D.
Went on line for 111, and just said live with it.
She needs antibiotics I’m sure

I am finding this thread so interesting. Just watching the BBC news which was talking to staff on a Scottish Covid ward who were basically saying they were on their knees (and I am not doubting this for one second) but then reading below someone else who works in Scotland on a Covid ward stating it is almost empty! This is all so strange!

Our local Doctors, website says contact 111, not them.

Just to add a bit of context though, although we are quiet now, a couple of weeks ago several London hospitals ran out of oxygen and/or space in the morgues. Satellite morgues had to be set up all over London and hospitals with no oxygen supply went on divert. I've never seen anything like it in my long career.

That wasn't reported either. I think the media reporting of this has been awful all round but not helped by a focus of the sort of idiotic staff who go on social media either ranting or dancing or posing in PPE.

Whilst it's reassuring to know that there is capacity why is it that more are not being admitted then? My friend (in London) called 111 and gp about her dad who had COVID and was struggling to breathe. He died at home because he was told not serious enough for hospital and no medical help would come. He was under 70, no underlying health condition, working and fit & healthy. What a waste when, according to this thread, there was enough capacity to treat him and had he been taken in he may have got the support to pull through.

Seems odd that if hospitals are empty that they dont take more people from nursing homes in to be more medically comfortable. Could this be because they would then be counted in the number and the gov dont want this.
Nursing homes near me have high levels of patients with covid symptoms but they have not been tested.
The NHS area I have been redeployed to has been unusually quiet but we are ready if it ramps up.