Why do people not realise that this behaviour also puts massive strain on the NHS?

[User56770987]

Running/jogging on icy pavements
Non essential journeys in the car on snowy/icy roads
'but we' re allowed out to exercise'
Careering down really steep hills on sledges. Facebook and WhatsApp full of this. Activity of choice in lockdown it seems.

I'm so sick of people not realising the potential harm they could be doing to already massively under pressure hospitals.

Feel so sorry for nhs doctors and nurses and hcps. Take your busiest day at work and multiple it by 100 and then throw in the mix that people's lives are in their hands- probably still not even close to the stress they are under.

I totally despair.

Bluebaubles 😂

@IPead

You know what? My 7 and 5 year olds cannot legally see their friends/peers/extended family for the next 6 weeks, minimum. Yet again they’ve had their schooling taken away, as well as all of their extra curricular activities. If it snows, we’re going sledging.

Ok, but if there are any accidents and you need a hospital please don’t be surprised by a 8 hour wait and no hospital beds. But I suppose that doesn’t matter because at least you went sledging. Enjoy the snow !

I do think it's ridiculous the amount of made up rules some people think we should follow..

However, at least once a day in my house I say "please do not break yourself, we are NOT going to a&e in the middle of a pandemic". Normally when one of the children is trying to forward roll off the sofa, climb on a kitchen chair to get snacks.

It's not that I'm thinking about pressure on the nhs, I just am still trying to avoid places where I'm more likely to catch covid and would prefer that my toddler could continue going to nursery in her little bubble so I can work, rather than being stuck at home with us in a plaster cast or with concussion

@IPead

You know what? My 7 and 5 year olds cannot legally see their friends/peers/extended family for the next 6 weeks, minimum. Yet again they’ve had their schooling taken away, as well as all of their extra curricular activities. If it snows, we’re going sledging.

Sledging with young children like yours shouldn't be dangerous anyway and they are being supervised, we used to take DS when he was young and it was fine, teens are a different case when they go out with their mates showing off a bit then it can be very dangerous. Enjoy your day.

@Notthissticky
I can’t believe you would be so selfish to be pregnant. Who do you think you are? Did you not consider the NHS before having unprotected sex ? You’re a monster

I understood your point OP.

No, people literally don't understand what could happen in the next few days. E.g. a healthy 25 year old dying of appendicitis because there's no space in hospital for them or people dying after a road traffic accident because emergency services take 10 hours to arrive rather than 10 minutes. These things seem beyond a lot of people's imagination...

Our motto for the entire Christmas holidays was please can we avoid A&E. Requesting that 5 yo does not fling 2yo around, act as a slide for him, 2 yo doesn't steal pencils, stab sister with them etc.

Our last 2 A&E visits have been "ridiculous". 1st one 5 yo complaining of pain on urination/abdo pain but no temp so saw GP who said abdo fine but irregular heartbeat so off you go to kids' A&E. Was fine but not the plan.

Exactly a week later, shit weather, less time outside, leaping around on the sofa she scratched her eye on DH's zip and as opticians aren't doing emergencies only option for staining/slit lamp is A&E.

Getting the worst of the fizz out of the kids definitely reduces risk of A&E trips...

Christ alive there's got to be a bit of balance. If you think it's risky, don't do it and let all the other adults make their own mind up.

My friend has just spilled a pan of pasta on her leg and scalded herself. Maybe we should only be eating cold food too until this whole mess is over.

Lots of posters are being deliberately ridiculous. OP never once said glue yourself to the couch eating Pringles and summoning a deep wave of depression.

She’s making a valid point. Yes accidents are most likely overall to happen in the home but you still significantly increase the personal risk of having one on a given day by deciding now is the time to take up running when it’s so icy.

We watched three runners in a row narrowly dodge a really nasty fall on one corner today which was completely iced over and not possible to walk on safely never mind come careering down the hill towards.
There’s also been heaps of people flocking to three local reservoirs in order to walk across the frozen water . Mostly taking videos and photos, presumably for social media.

I think all the OP was pointing out is that the next few weeks are the absolute worst time for anyone to require medical treatment that could have been avoided by just thinking a bit before deciding you fancy doing something that you don’t really need to do THIS week of all weeks.

@OutComeTheWolves I mean, I wanna agree with your sentiment but let’s remember at just how many points of this shitshow people have done their own risk assessment and where it’s left us.

If all the ‘other adults’ had been left to make up their own minds RE Xmas, there were huge swathes of people intending on mixing five households because they could, and they wanted to, and they’d decided to do their own risk assessing in spite of all the information being pummelled at them by experts.

Looking at the figures right now, I cannot imagine what the next few weeks would look like if people had been given more room to make their own minds up on risk.

We aren’t doing too great on people being able to behave responsibly and like adults.

DS is out cycling on the icy roads because he's a keyworker DELIVERING things to all the people who stay at home rather than have to go out.

Well the only times I've needed hospital treatment aside of pregnancy is from work related accidents. First time I fell down the stairs and sprained my foot, second time I cut my wrist polishing a glass. I've had several mishaps at home, slipping on a wet floor, somehow managing to bash my head on a door and as a result fall into the dishwasher.

My child fell on ice the other day walking, none of us saw it until it was too late. We could avoid leaving the house until there is less of an ice risk but I'm already struggling with having everything taken away, if I'm never allowed to leave the house I will have a breakdown and that's not said lightly.

You’d be better placed complaining about obesity and type 2 diabetes, because that’s the type of thing that really puts pressure on the nhs.

Why is it so difficult to stay at home, read a book, watch a film, paint a picture, learn a language, have a family zoom call etc

I have come to realise over the last year what a bunch of total couch potatoes some mumsnetters are.

Accidents needing a&e for me involving icy weather, horse riding, cars etc - 0

Accidents/injuries I have had not involving the above which needed a&e

Fell down the stairs, broken ankle and foot
Got out of bed, broke the other ankle and foot
Poured boiling caramel over myself resulting in burns clinic
Smashed a Pyrex dish and got some in my eye
Herniated a disc so badly I got cauda equina and needed emergency surgery from doing nothing (ambulance, 3 scans, admission)
Gave myself cellulitis from cutting myself shaving
Abscess which needed emergency op
Pneumonia from a chest infection

Basically I shouldn't be allowed to stay at home and I'm actually safer on a horse....

Our hospital has had to cancel all non urgent appointments. Ambulance staff are queued up because they have to stay until someone can take over.
Have some sense. Talk about over reaction. People do need to think before acting. We haven’t been for our shopping yesterday or today. It is five miles to our nearest shop. You might think this is ridiculous but one of the van people said he had been in the ditch twice today and had to get a farmer to pull him out. I cobbled together a different meal than planned and will do for the next few days. We walked carefully to take my friend some bread as her road was too dangerous for anything more than a tractor. I won’t be going to Mass on Sunday if it is still like this. I went three years ago road looked normal in our village but I hit a patch of black ice a mile and a half away the car skidded went off the road collecting the give way sign and I hit a larger sign as it wouldn’t steer( steering locked) I thought I was going to die. I don’t know how I didn’t. I wasn’t driving fast as I was coming up to cross roads. The car was a complete write off. The tyre was ripped off the driver’s side and bumper off. The ambulance took over an hour to come but luckily I had nothing but a broken finger and I had been knocked out as I don’t remember some of it.
Please take care. Some areas are a lot worse than others. You can’t always see black ice. Three others skidded there that morning. They stopped gritting our road years ago despite the wagon being in our village for the motorway.
The OP isn’t saying stay in. She is saying be considerate of the NHS. Were you out clapping? Surely consider the risks is more supportive to them than clapping.
Just take care.

Riding my horse at 17 horse fell jumping I came off hat came off kicked in the head decompressed fractured skull.

Lots of injuries are caused in the home. My sister had been sitting with her leg under her. Got up had a dead leg went to walk on it fell and broke her leg. A&E told her they saw it a lot.

@RumHoney

I've seen a Facebook post from a friend who is a consultant radiologist tonight, saying pretty much the same as the OP. Be sensible people.

Consultant radiologist? Who won't have actually encountered an actual patient in weeks, if ever? Who is sitting at home with their PACS open, chiding those who 'overrun' hospitals?

One of them? 😂

I have given up riding my motorcycle because of this.

Although I do get the underlying message to this, bare in mind that there are people who absolutely do need A&E right now but wont because they are told hospitals are overran and can't cope with them. From what I recall from the last long lockdown, far too many people were dying at home from things that they should have gone to hospital for. There is a chap on my FB right now in bits because his mum has worrying symptoms and wont seek help for it because she thinks hospitals are only dealing with Covid at the moment.

This thread is more proof that whatever the public do it will never be enough.

Stay home. It’s a few weeks

Its been TEN MONTHS.

So sick of the bloody gaslighting.

I think yanbu but it's just too much for a lot of people who have grown up with free treatment on tap to think about the consequences of their actions. It's also rather insulting to people with mental health difficulties to use that excuse for wanting to do such activities. People understand the need to exercise for mental health but curbing activities where you are at higher risk of needing medical treatment does not prevent fresh air and exercise. It's also wrong to see people try to justify things by saying suicide rates are growing. There was no evidence in England to the end of 2020 that this is the case and let's hope it stays that way.

This man knows what he is talking about with regards to suicide stats and warns against using made up stats to try to win arguments about lockdown twitter.com/ProfLAppleby/status/1346081772069662721

I actually agree that people need to be sensible. Most people I know are hooked on adrenaline sports /watersports and none of us are doing them right now as it doesn't seem appropriate.

I don't think I can begrudge children a spot of sledging though. They are really shouldering a lot of the changes of the pandemic. (We have no snow where we live sadly)

Jogging - surely the NHS need people to take care of their bodies right now more than ever so we can't have people being made to feel guilty about staying fit.

You’re not being unreasonable OP. I have a horse and could go miles off-site from the livery, but we don’t. We stay on-site (no road riding) and school or use the extensive land around the livery. No big jumps, no cross-country. Sensible.

Is this a piss take? I can't tell anymore on mumsnet.