Is anyone else hating their NHS life?

[hayfeverhellish]

NHS during covid was awful, obviously. But I think we were running on adrenaline but the ‘recovery phase’ is something else.

I’m in therapies so we are never thought about - it’s all cancer screening, operations and bed days that matter. But we are the people that get patients back on their feet, eating, talking and looking after themselves.

Currently, half of us have been forced to work at home with ‘virtual appointments’ (which doesn’t work for a lot of the patients and the tech is crap) and basically forgotten about in the new struggle for rooms / staff / PPE to restart services.

Everyone is tired, arguing over rooms and services, loads of people on long term sick with stress, unpaid leave due to lack of space in schools, and now we have to wear masks ALL. THE. TIME.

I could cry at the thought of Monday. The job I loved seems to have left the building and the patients are suffering

Just me?

@Midrangecolours

I'm not an NHS worker but just read all of this to see how you were all getting on and am horrified. I just can't get my head around you having to wear these suffocating masks all day but that patients or their partners would hurl abuse at you is just beyond me

Just wanted you to know that you are all very appreciated by so many people 'out here' xxx

Well said!!! So much better than my waffle!!

I am horrified about readying you are not allowed to drink, only on lunch break, that surely isn't right, legal or moral.
As I said I'm currently signed off pregnancy nausea until Friday, but reading this thread has made me want it extended.
I'm constantly having to eat / drink / sit down/lie down to make Myself feel a bit better. It's impossible in a mask all day!

Can you go to the RCN /Unison with this PPs?

It’s difficult for working age people to leave with not many employment opportunities elsewhere but I bet a lot of staff at retirement age who might have stayed for more years will now go. We have a large proportion of nhs professional staff at or nearing retirement age. We might mop up some staff from private healthcare who have seen their patient numbers plummet and redundancies are likely there.

Yes
All has been running on adrenaline and good will for months.
I’m
Exhausted just in time for the next uptick.
There’s a thread by Taryn Youngstown on Twitter which is basically completely how I feel twitter.com/tyoungstein/status/1272779355228385280?s=21

Youngstein (autocorrect fail)

Joining you all. Specialist mental health team. What really gets my goat is that 14 weeks ago were were really left to sort out how we were going to work ourselves. No proper advice. Our managers have been incredibly supportive and my service has continued to function with us all carefully planning which team members are using our office each day, how we manage our own cleaning, how we keep ourselves together as a Team when we can't have regular meetings. And I think we all did pretty well, no-one has been unwell, our service ahs continued and we still feel connected.
Since Monday our office looks like a biohazard zone. Masks, tape showing where we can and can't sit, no food/drinks, one person only at each time allowed in the kitchen, all familiar stuff to you all I'm sure. The joy has completely gone out of work and most of us will now mostly work from home. Advice 14 weeks too late

Are the managers who tell you off for having a drink masked up themselves? This is absolutely shit and shouldn't be allowed if you need a drink you need a bloody drink.

Christ what's going on. Surprised the unions aren't doing something about this.

If this continues you can imagine and understand if the nurses went on strike. There really has to be a balance and some common sense.

Someone said upthread, it's not NHS managers, this is all Gov guidance which came out late Friday to be implemented on Monday. We understand out managers don't really have a choice - it's all about making workplaces 'Covid secure'. I'm not blaming my managers - they have to share our office building and yes, they are subject to all the same restrictions.

I thought the NHS was heavily unionised ? Have you not spoken to your union reps about these things? If I was you I would be straight on at my union rep, it's a disgrace. You're all brilliant and it's disgusting how you're all being treated. Both of my siblings and DH all work for the NHS but their workloads are all pretty quiet still at the moment and their hospital Trust seems very reasonable or at least in their departments (A&E clinical and inpatient pharmacy) they are not having any problems with taking a few mins for a drink or whatever etc.

The managers should be leading on this with the government and telling them it's not feasible - what is the job of an NHS manager if it's not to look after their staff who in turn look after patients.

The mask thing will last until they stop track and trace. It's the only way that we will not have whole teams off for 14 days, just in case. Otherwise if one person gets it, we are all out, and we cannot leave the hospital empty, can we?

@bluetrews25 - I agree about wearing masks but not that you can't have a drink when you're on shift and have to wait for your break. That's out of order IMO.

Staff are being treated very badly if this continues.

I work on a children's ward, so we allowed one parent per patient to visit throughout this when adults were not allowed any visitors. As of Monday the parents have to wear masks 24 hours a day, including when they are asleep! They are allowed to take them off only briefly to eat and drink. Obviously they are not adhering to those rules. The patients are supposed to wear them too if they are over the age of 2, outside of their cubicle and it won't affect their breathing. None of them are doing that.
We have been wearing masks on the ward for ages now, so wearing them off the ward too is not such a huge change, but I can emphasise with those who have never had to wear them before. And, obviously, the general covid-related burnout from everything.
I used to cope with my job by decompressing in my silent, empty house on my days off, watching the occasional tv programme and sometimes crying to sad songs played loudly. Now I spend my days off trying to teach my own children, am never on my own and have watched a total of 3 pre-recorded tv programmes since lockdown began.

I sat and cried at my dining room table about 30 minutes ago because twice this morning I've emailed people and asked them the same question I asked them only last Friday. Three nights in a row I've had vivid and unpleasant dreams that have woken me up. I can't remember things, I can't focus, I'm so irritable I'm constantly worried I'm going to lose it with someone and my shoulders are agony from being glued to my laptop pretty much 8 hours of the day. Fire fighting, that's what I'm doing.

People are leaving, 3 from one small team, all in the same week. They've had enough and so have I.
I haven't even read the thread I just saw the title and thought I need to dump my shit somewhere.

I'm so sorry everyone is going through this. It's really tough right now. I hate it all of it. Beneath the mask shit, taping, cleaning toilets, suffocating, lack of rooms, not allowed to drink, not restarting services crap we are all dealing with....it's the patients that are suffering. Our caseload is not quite where it was pre covid and we now can't manage the workload due to sickness.

In my trust, I'm the ONLY person left who can do a specific area of work with children who become very sick if we don't do it. I'm very close to going off sick, I can't cope with this anymore and when I do, those children will have nothing. How do I have that on my conscience?

huaShan totally agree with your posts. Months we have been getting on with it - and now we have to have a f**ing rota to go to the toilet?????

Has anyone actually gone off sick - what did you say to GP to get signed off? I am honestly thinking I might have to do this as the stress and current working conditions are genuinely making me unwell and I am not sure I am in a fit state to carry out my job properly.

@Bluetrews25 Except there is very little evidence that the masks even work so I don’t see how it helps track and trace. The masks we are giving patients on arrival are not even fluid resistant so will do absolutely nothing to protect them but track and trace will say no need to isolate as wearing a mask? That’s worse! In our trust we don’t have whole teams off for 14 days anyway, everyone is swapped when they are symptomatic so it’s 24 hours while awaiting results and back to normal.

Swabbed not swapped

@Weepinggreenwillow My GP offered to sign me off but I haven’t taken it yet as I feel guilty. That was due to my asthma and the fact that the mask is severely compromising it, technically I’m exempt from wearing a mask but as clinical staff the exemption doesn’t apply to me. I know of 6 colleagues that are currently off sick with anxiety. There’s going to be no staff left soon!

I manage an outpatient service. Absolute shit show at the moment. A dept in our building has closed because they identified all colleagues as a contact during Track and Trace because they didn't follow social distancing measures. It's put the fear of god in to people and now we've been told to constantly wear masks. My manager told me to wear a mask in my own office. On my own. Ridiculous.

lesbianMummies I know, it is the guilt that is stopping me going off. havent had a day off sick in years, but honestly dont know how much longer I can do this. I have really bad hayfever and asthma (normally mild but always bad at peak hayfever time - so now!) so I am a sneezing snotty wheezing mess in a mask!!

We have been rewarded for our efforts of moving onto a new, emergency 24/7 rota, annual leave cancelled etc by being told moving forwards all bank holidays except christmas day will be classed as a normal working day. Thanks.

Oh yes, the way to 'keep us all safe' is to make us work long split shifts and across 7 days (which our service can't be done on, it's a 9-5 job) and then have the balls to make it sound like they're doing us a favour.

I'm in dermatology outpatients. Trying to do video consults with 90 year old deaf patients is difficult to say the least. It's unfair to them when they can't use the technology when it works. Everyone including the patients would prefer them to be able to come in!

MH community. Apparently to conserve PPE supplies (because we have to wear them in the office now) we should wear one mask for depot clinics and not change between patients 🙄