"lips must turn blue before an ambulance will come out"

[lljkk]

I've heard that claim a few times, about probable cv19 cases not being allowed to go to hospital.

Is it true or just hyperbole? I think it might be a gross exaggeration. Does anyone have a link to a real named person or even an NHS staff person saying this has happened?

I'm happy to see a SAD face in tabloids where someone is willing to not anonymously say it happened to themself or their loved one or their patient. I can't even find a tabloid story like that, though.

[madroid]

@NearlyAlmostFifty Hospitals discharge patients using taxis. Those patients have tested negative but then the test is not very reliable particularly when it's just a few days after exposure.

[effingterrified]

Yes, I read someone saying they had a relative who died because the ambulance wouldn't take them in as their lips weren't turning blue.

This is a big part of why the death rates are so high in the UK, compared to eg Germany, where people are taken to hospital much earlier, when they are much more likely to survive with treatment.

We couldn't do that in the UK as we had insufficient hospital capacity due to years of austerity and lack of pandemic planning.

So people have been left to die at home, where they wouldn't get added to the official death stats, so the Government would look better.

Also, the government wanted to avoid the photos of patients in hospital corridors, on the floor etc, that came out of Spain. Patients who die at home aren't photographed and don't make uncomfortable headlines for Dominic Cummings Boris.

[Witchend]

Surprised that people think waiting for an ambulance is a recent covid related problem.

This.

Last year I had to phone 999 for a lady at work who had what we suspected was a stroke. The first three time I called I got an automatic message "The 999 service is experiencing a high levels of calls and there is no one available to take your call. please call again later" and then it cut off. When I got through we were told 3-4 hour wait for an ambulance, but if she lost consciousness again to call back and she'd be moved up the list.

[ThisHereMamaBear]

My mother in law was told this.

[JoeBidensDisintegratingBrain]

With the climate being the way it is in England I thought everyone's lips were already blue over there.

[kingkuta]

Bathroom12345 obviously those waiting for an ambulance and told it's on it's way dont imagine it will take 3 hours to get there. They've been told it's on it's way, you think it will be quick, you phone back and are told it will be with you soon and by the time you know it's too late, it's too late to try and get them there yourself. And I'm sure it's not beyond your imagination to consider getting an unconscious fully grown adult to hospital yourself is no easy task. Ever tried getting an unconscious man into your car? One you dont even know whether you should be moving at all as you dont know what's wrong with them? I dont think so

[ZeroFuchsGiven]

It should be better for the inevitable second wave because we'll have the Dyson ventilators

It was on the news yesterday the government have told Dyson their ventilators will no longer be needed.

[Lemonblast]

As with everything COVID related, I think it’s important to remember that the situation has literally changed from day to day. Information has changed, learning and experience has changed.
In the ‘early’ days, when we were looking at what was happening in Lombardy etc the fear was that hospitals and ICUs would be totally overwhelmed so my understanding was that ‘admission criteria’ was quite strict. The aim being to ensure that only the sickest patients were admitted. Phone triages included screening things like how far a patient could count before they became breathless etc.
But as more was learned and understood about the clinical presentation of COVID it has emerged that patients can initially present as fairly ‘well’, that hypoxia can be present but patients cope with it quite well, but that they can then deteriorate fast.
As with any guidelines, protocols and procedures, they are inly as effective as the people who use them. And by the time information and advice is disseminated down to the ‘coal face’ of call handlers, paramedics etc it may already be out of date.

There will of course be years of analysis and investigation to come. Questions will be asked and some of the answers will make uncomfortable reading.
But I think we need to remember that this situation has never been seen before in our lifetime.

[MrsFezziwig]

@Xenia I just wondered if you ever write posts that don't mention how much money you pay in taxes? Is it some sort of compulsion?

@Northernsoullover I thought I was the only person who had noticed this!

[sanealaddin]

I'm in London. I've just asked a paramedic friend and he tells me this is not true in our area.

[Lemonblast]

Xenia has been banging the same drum for years

[WatcherintheRye]

Maybe home oximeters (available through Amazon and elsewhere, even Argos until they ran out) are the way forward? As mentioned by a pp, 'silent' hypoxia can be a feature with some Covid sufferers, where they can present as relatively well - no shortness of breath or difficulty in speaking - but the way the virus is acting in them means that their body can still be desperately short of oxygen.

If people were aware that, struggling for breath or not, any level below the mid 90s was a warning signal, they might feel more confident about accessing treatment, with the information at hand to give to HCPs/call handlers.

[WeShouldBeFriends]

Does anyone know if the ambulance service managed to get the powers granted for forced entry without the attendance of the police?
Yes we can

[Bagelsandbrie]

Would like to personally congratulate @Xenia for pouring so much money into the NHS through taxes and hardly using it.

I’m sure many people - like myself; with my PIP money and several chronic health conditions that have prevented me achieving any sort of long term career despite being very high achieving in school would have liked to have the luck to achieve the same thing. But life had other plans.

Anyway.

I think the whole thing is a myth, circulating to discourage people from ringing.

[rwalker]

My sister works at our hospital not sure here and they say paramedics practically having to drag people in one one wants to go into hospital

[madroid]

Just googled re Dyson. I can't understand that decision. This is far from over yet. What about once we all go back and the whole thing starts up again?

But hats off to Dyson covering the £20m cost himself. I hope his ventilators (if they work) can be used in other countries that need them.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"If people were aware that, struggling for breath or not, any level below the mid 90s was a warning signal, they might feel more confident about accessing treatment, with the information at hand to give to HCPs/call handlers."

Yes, but ideally we'd have earlier medical intervention rather than being told to diagnose ourselves. I couldn't even find a thermometer for a reasonable price last time I looked.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"When I got through we were told 3-4 hour wait for an ambulance, but if she lost consciousness again to call back and she'd be moved up the list."

That's shit, but at one point at least they had stroke down in a category of not as urgent as other things, which accounts for the long wait.

[Gwenhwyfar]

" think that has been an exception and not the rule. Seems like business as usual for the majority"

How do you know that though Looney?
You should have written 'it's not true all the time' rather than 'it's not true at all' because you just don't know and you can't discount other people's accounts.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"Twice his partner was concerned about his breathing and was told they wouldn’t see him until his lips were blue or he was unconscious. He still can’t get out of bed or take more than a few sips of water."

So what would have happened to him if he was single and not able to get out of bed to get water?

[ChipotleBlessing]

Dominic Cummings wife said he should have been I hospital according to their pulse oximeter, but wasn’t because he could speak a sentence and wasn’t blue. She’s a journalist and this was in an article in a national paper. I don’t trust either of them, but she has said it and not anonymously.

[WatcherintheRye]

Yes, but ideally we'd have earlier medical intervention rather than being told to diagnose ourselves.

I agree, but it's useful to have easily obtained concrete data to hand, in case a call handler tries to persuade you that you're not ill enough. Provided they're given the same benchmarks, of course! Surely oxygen levels couldn't be quibbled with?

[Gwenhwyfar]

"I also don’t understand people waiting hours for ambulances. I am with Xenia. Get someone to drive you, family, neighbour, call a taxi. If you really think you are that bad surely you wouldn’t wait for an ambulance for hours and hours."

But you'd infect a taxi driver???!!
Yes, I mean selfishness would probably kick in if you thought you were going to die, but this is not what people should be doing surely.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"There was a lot of coverage about CV cases being triaged meaning that quite a few categories of people would be left to die at home without medical intervention."

The people not having medical intervention I thought were the ones too frail for it to be helpful rather than not ill enough, if you see what I mean.

I read that Dyson's not doing the ventilators any more.

[SarahTancredi]

If someones bad enough for an ambulance surely there's a good chance they cant walk far enough to get to the car

How does a pregnant woman or a child or a disabled adult drag someone down flights of stairs across concrete driveways over door steps and stuff.