London Hospital declares Major Incident.

[RubyViolet]

This is frightening, and it’s not the hospital that l have heard about earlier today. This is in South London and l am hearing about a hospital in North London.
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-london-queen-elizabeth-hospital-oxygen-b1779468.html

What happens next ?

I've just come off 2 very long days of ICU outreach for the wards in a London hospital.

It is pretty horrific and in no way a normal winter. I've been in acute hospital care for 19 years and what I experienced in Spring and am experiencing now are off the scale. Major incidents are normally short lived. This however is grinding.

I started my shift yesterday morning with 28 critically I'll patients not in ITU. Many of whom are on CPAP or high flow nasal O2. We are running out of machines and are going to have to make very difficult decisions. O2 supply is an issue so we are redistributing patients on high O2 flows but that is very challenging for staff who are not used to HDU level patients. There is an element of risk for the patient we would not normally accept, but on balance it is the best we can do. ITU is over capacity. When I left last night we had 3 machines left for CPAP/HFNO and my colleague said "but I put 4 people on last night".

And unlike spring we have none of the extra manpower we had then yet.

We are a exhausted.

I will reiterate. This is not normal winter pressures. This does not happen every year!

@Madhairday

I'm on there for work, Mia... It's everywhere on there.

Poor you. Twitter really impacted my mental health.

Why aren't the govt sorting out more cpap machines? Why aren't the media screaming about this

I’m assuming it doesn’t matter how many cpap machines they have if they don’t have the infrastructure to support them

@Redinthefacegirl, thank you for sharing your experiences so clearly.

Why isn't this more widely available to the general public? Is there some sort of gagging order?
Does nobody actually care any more.

@JacobReesMogadishu, I assume they are too busy screaming about how to fit into a bikini or something equally useful. Or how to take in Syrian Refugees and have a wonderful Christmas.

Thank you @Redinthefacegirl for sharing. It sounds horrendous. Thank you for all you are doing

Why isn't this more out there in the press?

Our London trust is under pressure and is worse than March/April. We have staff dropping like flies and we are having to call in staff who are on leave. Even this is not enough. We are worried for Jan for when schools open.

Absolutely, you assume right. O2 supply, consumables and staff time & expertise are required.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

Is anyone else wondering how bad it has to get before some people admit we might have an unusual and unprecedented problem?

This.

Who knows. The way things are going, we will probably find out in a few weeks.

There is a time lag for Covid. Cases are rising rapidly at the moment. Hospital admission rates have been a few weeks behind any change in case numbers. Followed a few weeks later by the death rates. January is not looking good at the moment.

I really hope rates do not continue to rise.

CPAP doesn't use oxygen. I use CPAP every night to sleep.

@MadMumToThree

CPAP doesn't use oxygen. I use CPAP every night to sleep.

This has already been covered up thread. I think I can reliably confirm (along with the ICU doctor and nurse above) that yes, the type of non invasive ventilation used most of the time in hospitalised patients does use oxygen and a shit load of it

Ok thank you #Mrbob. I missed that information.

[quote Motorina]@ZombiePara this is all true but there's less evolutionary pressure to become less lethal on a virus which is at it's most contagious pre-symptoms. Once it's made the leap to the next host, what happens to the first one is almost irrelevant, for the virus.

I hope that Covid will become less lethal, but it's under less pressure to do so than something like Ebola, which does not transmit until after symptoms have developed. A less lethal version of Ebola would allow the host to transmit it for longer, but covid already has a decent pre-symptomatic transmission window.

Nasty bug.[/quote]
That's a very good point! Viruses and diseases aren't my area of expertise, was just a hope in my head I suppose!

Seems that the newspapers are starting to carry the story today.
I don’t subscribe to The Telegraph but the Nightingale issue is front page.
Come on Government.... do something, anything to help deal with this mess.

I fear what the government can do (apart from monetary tax free bonuses to hospital & caring staff) will be hugely unpopular, i.e. tier 5 and school closures.

It appears we can read Covid updates for free in the Torygraph.
www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-tier-4-oxford-vaccine-new-strain-lockdown1/

We need to stop mi OMG. Cancel those secret NYE parties - just extended family and of course those MH issues if you don’t have it.

Just stop, go out for essential shopping only and by yourself. Stop taking the whole family, shop online. Stop making excuses as to why you can do xxx.

Mixing (not mi OMG)!

Yet the 70m of the UK have suffered hugely and lost almost every thing except their life in some cases because of the financial impact of the lockdowns. it is a difficult balance but 600,000 extra people dying for example might be the greater good compared with the destruction of lives due to the measures and the result that we have no tax money to pay the salaries of nurses and teachers. They are not simple issues.

London School of Hygiene say we must vaccinate 2 million a week, so why are the Government messing around with sending the army in to schools to test. They should be sending the army out to vaccinate.
Why are we not focusing on vaccinations right now, do we not have enough ? Have we not developed a system to roll it out .

@MadMumToThree

CPAP doesn't use oxygen. I use CPAP every night to sleep.

Well you aren’t fighting for your life are you? I can assure you that CPAP machines do use forced oxygen. I know because I fought for my life on one for several days. Why on earth make statements about something you know nothing about?

God I thought my steroid rage was abating, but no, it’s still there.

Redintgefacegirl - thank you from the bottom of my heart - to you and your colleagues, who are working so very hard in desperate conditions. I was in hospital for 9 nights. I know there is not enough fully functioning equipment to save everyone. I am desperate for the authorities to acknowledge the dire, dire straights we are in. And then you get people on these threads who show so little comprehension as to what is happening. They know nothing at all about what it’s like but have a need to pass comment.

So many people are going to die, who could gave been saved. I feel so useless - I do want to help, but I can’t.

@Xenia

Yet the 70m of the UK have suffered hugely and lost almost every thing except their life in some cases because of the financial impact of the lockdowns. it is a difficult balance but 600,000 extra people dying for example might be the greater good compared with the destruction of lives due to the measures and the result that we have no tax money to pay the salaries of nurses and teachers. They are not simple issues.

Xenia - shut up. As a fellow lawyer, I’m embarrassed by you.

@RubyViolet

London School of Hygiene say we must vaccinate 2 million a week, so why are the Government messing around with sending the army in to schools to test. They should be sending the army out to vaccinate. Why are we not focusing on vaccinations right now, do we not have enough ? Have we not developed a system to roll it out .

No we don't have enough vaccines yet. Hopefully once the Oxford vaccine is approved they can start community roll out, the current one is hard to transport.

Ruby good point.I can't understand why 4 or 6 weeks are being made such a fuss of.

Force schools to teach properly on line, take care of the rest who can't in school...

And direct every resource to vaccination programs.