Fellow NHS staff, how are we all doing?...

[missmeg3leg]

....just that really, I know I’m not alone in being wrapped in fear as we enter wave 2-3, I’m exhausted & numb, for the 3rd time myself & colleagues are re-deployed to CV ICU tomorrow, my hospital’s cases have doubled over a week, high staff sickness / isolating, all but 3 wards are CV+ or high risk, shifts ever changing....sorry for self-pity but I’m close to breaking 😢

Spent the last three days re-deployed as a vaccinator and want you all to know we are doing our utmost to make sure as many as possible get this vaccine ASAP. I'm away from my usual position and in awe of how hard everyone was working to get it out quickly and to everyone who could have it today even if it meant not going home to families when they were meant to. Hold fast, we are going to do our best to make things better.

They are also working really hard behind the scenes to train people up, get retired people back in and create more places where the vaccine can be available. I know it's rubbish right now but there are so many people working like crazy to make it better for you all out there on the front line.

Oh missmeg it's so shit right now.
I've just heard rumours of us being redeployed for our Christmas night shifts too...
It's gonna sound daft with everything going on but just to have a night shift with your own colleagues on your own ward is something important for mental health and coping isn't it...

Lostinwales your work is what gives me my tiny glimmer of hope at the moment so thank you.

Shit really. Six staff are down with it and we have to be on standby to go in.

Work in an arms length body of NHS, we are all exhausted, stressed and burnt out. The demands on us are dreadful. Our workload has probably quadrupled and our staffing levels over the past 3 years have reduced to about 30% capacity. Add to that staff off isolating with covid it’s completely untenable. No one listens though. Senior leaders talk about well-being but don’t listen.

Had my Christmas day annual leave cancelled. I get why as it is horrific in here again but I'm just so sad, tired and scared.

I’m off sick, week 6 of Covid. Can’t make it upstairs without palpitations and breathing difficulties. Feeling incredibly guilty about being off over Xmas and new year. Hoping my colleagues forgive me.

Knackered, sick of the bloody lot of it, not feeling remotely Christmassy. Sad that my 8 yo DD told me today she couldn’t remember what life used to be like before Covid 😢

Keeping my fingers crossed I get my vaccine soon. Official vaccination of staff starting in our trust on 4 Jan but a few colleagues have managed to get vaccinated already when they have been in the right place at the right time when there have been spare vaccines at the end of a session.

Can i ask as a vaccinator yourself do you feel.safe with ppe etc and have u been offered the vaccine yrself ?

Not patient facing but am in hospice clinical management (charity but significantly funded by the NHS if that counts). Just finished a 15 hour day without more than a couple of breaks to grab a cup of tea (basically the norm over the past couple of weeks, give or take) to coordinate our response to support our colleagues in acute care and the community, as well as ensuring our end of life patients (inc. Covid +) and their families are cared for with a skeleton staff due to sickness and isolation.

I am utterly exhausted.

I'm not in the NHS but just wanted to say thank you all so much. I can't even imagine how hard this year has been for you all and you are so appreciated.

We are supposed to go through the same bunfight as everyone else to get a vaccine appointment but as the Pfizer one can only be used within an hour of being drawn into the syringe I got one that would have 'timed out' otherwise. It was AMAZING. Just got to make it through through to the booster now! I'm trying not to think about the fact that I must have touched 50 people yesterday. We have masks and visors and I have my own station that I can obsessively clean myself but otherwise I'm just trying to ignore the fact that a lot of the staff I vaccinated yesterday work with Covid patients - hands are in shreds from washing/hand gel. Absolutely in awe of the staff working on Covid wards.

I think we are all doing ok here in speciality mental health in the Midlands. Some staff redeployed to the general hospitals in other areas of the trust but not us. Working hard at keeping things going by telephone and video to stop waiting lists going back up. Morale isn’t too bad; tends to go in waves. All my staff seemed ok yesterday and are all getting a break over Christmas.

I missed the worst of the first peak as I was on maternity leave, started back in April in obstetrics so was relatively protected. Now I'm in cardiac/general theatres but our lists are grinding to a halt as there's no ICU beds. At the same time ICU are desperate for staff so I'm probably going to get sent there very soon. I don't mind ICU but I haven't worked in this one at my current hospital before, don't know the computer system, PPE protocols etc. I'll pick it up soon enough but it's scary right now. We are anticipating 1.5x the number of ICU patients we saw in the first wave this time.

First wave was a bit of an anticlimax round here.
This time round things are much worse and yet the reaction seems less
Staff not being redeployed yet, routine stuff still running as much as possible
We've had 2 huge ward outbreaks in the Trust with pretty much all staff and patients getting infected and then all off for weeks. Staffing is really dire. Annual leave is getting cancelled.
Management just going round shrieking 'wash your hands, use PPE, don't eat lunch together' as if we weren't all doing that already.
I am off sick with COVID right now although recovering and I feel as though 'well the worst has happened' for me.

I'm drained, exhausted and feeling very emotional. I was redeployed for 3 months during the first lockdown and now it's looking like it could happen again. My service is stretched to breaking point and out waiting lists are horrendous.

Thank you all. I am in awe.

ICU nurse, absolutely dreading the coming weeks / months and feel like my mental health has not recovered from round one. We had one ICU bed available in the trust yesterday and 12 patients in A&E to come to ICU. Opening new ICU beds all over the hospital but we don’t have enough staff for the beds we have already.

I’d just like to say an enormous thank you to everyone who gets redeployed into ICU (or did in the first wave). I can’t imagine how stressful it is but please don’t worry about not knowing enough, we are extremely grateful for your help and just having an extra pair of hands makes all the difference.

Sending love to you all

Struggling.

As are most of the others I’m working with. Dreading what’s to come if I’m honest. It’s just rubbish!!

Huge thanks thank you , THANK YOU to the amazing staff!

I have a question, in the past week I have had to go to two diff hospitals and within one two diff sections, various waiting rooms etc , corridors...

I have read that moving around hospitals you can pick up corona and we all know how crucial ventilation is - so why isn't a single window open! I know its not you guys but who would be in control of that sort of thing, I would expect the NHS to be leading the charge on ventilation!

I am so, so tired.

I am a community midwife and feel a little like we are a forgotten service. We were short staffed before covid, now it is so much worse. We have a chunk of the workforce shielding, leaving the rest of us with more and more face to face care to cover, meaning the rest of us are gradually hitting our limit. Of a team of 8, 1 is shielding 3 are on long term sick, 1 is on maternity leave and the remaining 3 of us are sinking fast. I start early and finish late every day.
We go into covid positive households regularly. People are (understandably) fed up of having to attend appointments alone and it's getting harder and harder to say no, meaning we are exposed to an increasing number of people. And on top of this, my employer is insisting we resume carbon monoxide testing at every appointment. It seems self defeatist asking women to remove their mask and blow into a cardboard tube as hard as they can, in a tiny clinic room with a window what only opens an inch. My blue surgical mask will only protect me so much.

*That not what

A little bump on this post as I'm sure we all need it more than ever right now.

Thank you raeray 🙏
like many in our position I am exhausted, physically & worsening mentally, we have a full covid itu, full covid itu no2 based in theatres & recovery, all wards bar 2 bays on one ward are covid, this wave is far far worse than no1.

I stood in the middle of itu today & almost in a detached slo-mo way I watched a patient being resuscitated, 2 new admissions being squeezed past ,another having a last visit & my patient begging me to shoot her.....😢😢😢

& to add icing on the cake I finally finished my shift & found a parking ticket on my car from the security jobs worth because I had parked in a testing zone car park space in my worn out state 13 hours earlier 🤬🤬🤬🤬