Does anyone find sobbing nurses etc in The News every night, in any way helpful?

[Miljea]

.... or does this footage rapidly lose its impact?

I sort of feel 'Yes, we know, and if the first months of footage failed to shock and awe, this won't!'. If anything, all it does is to numb people.

Ditto the non-contextualised rolling statistics.

Do you think it's an actual strategy, to bombard us with this? If it is, I fear it's not working.

FTR I'm coalface, Covid facing, full PPE NHS, tho not ICU.

But I have got up and personal with Covid that is killing people. Including in ICU.

But I don't think the News' blanket slightly blurry footage of HCPs all kitted up going about their business, interspersed with interviews with sobbing nurses- really helps. I have even heard the 'for God's sake, it's their job' remarks (at the hairdressers, when they were briefly open, TV on).

That person was argued with by her mate, but I do wonder whether too much of this sort of coverage makes people weary of it.

@BurrosTail

I think it’s helpful, actually, because the covidiots who have been sharing vids of “empty” hospitals have finally gone quiet on a couple of WhatsApp groups.

Have they? Good. I am not on any WhatsApp groups so don't usually encounter them.

I must say, sympathetic though I am, a lot of what is put on the news washes over me. There's been so much of it, I now feel quite distanced. Maybe that is a form of self protection. I've heard others say the same.

I agree its overkill .Most of us abide by the rules only going out when necessary ,wearing masks ,cleaning hands and so on.This footage makes us battleweary .I have great appreciation for the difficult work our NHS undertake ,and imagine most people feel the same .However we dont need a half hour bulletin nightly courtesy of the BBC!

Do you think it's an actual strategy, to bombard us with this? If it is, I fear it's not working

Its definitely not a strategy op, you think the news crews come in a tell the staff to start acting upset? These are real people doing a really really difficult job at the moment, imagine seeing people dropping like flies and then you have to tell their relatives they've died, the staff are still human beings with emotions, seeing that much death of otherwise young healthy people must be awful

I don't find it helpful in fact I no longer watch the news now other than on a need to know basis.

I'm not a Covid denier and I'm well aware of what's going on and I follow guidelines, I just don't need propaganda rammed down my throat every 5 minutes.

Its only 9 months ago the NHS and media were taking great delight in videoing themselves doing the bloody conga or equivalent on Tik tok.

Endless rows of people fighting for their lives is not a pleasant experience. However this has being coming for yrs, science has failed in it's endeavours to push the boundaries of human life yrs.

This pandemic is natures push back.
Devastating.

I think it is useful for a couple of reasons:

• if people don't see it, they don't believe it. Unfortunately similar scenes were taking place before Christmas in hospitals, but it didn't suit the government to inform the public so they let household mixing take place and the current situation is the result.

• some people who are key workers and public-facing think their jobs are the same or harder than doctors and nurses, and teachers even think they are at more risk of catching/dying of Covid - even though over 600 NHS staff dead can't be beaten by any profession.

• there has been a law on face coverings for many months but it did not suit the government or police to enforce it. Now that they are considering trying to enforce it, it is extra hard to get public buy-in after months of everyone on all sides ignoring the law and treating it as voluntary. To stop indoor transmission before we are all vaccinated, the only solution is face coverings and people need to see what happens if you don't wear one. Maybe the police will leave country car parks and beaches and venture into indoor spaces now to enforce this law (as long as no-one is rude to them).

@BurrosTail

I think it’s helpful, actually, because the covidiots who have been sharing vids of “empty” hospitals have finally gone quiet on a couple of WhatsApp groups.

They were videoing the only places accessible to the public without an ID pass to swipe - the outpatients clinics - on a bank holiday when no clinics were taking place. People like them are a danger to society.

It makes me feel like it's propaganda. Like the media is protesting too much.

I personally don’t watch regularly, but have seen bits on the news last year with this kind of thing on it.

Can’t speak for other HCPs, but no one in my hospital did any stupid online dances, it was a disciplinary offence. I didn’t like nurses crying when they couldn’t get food as shelves were empty, even though I had been in that situation myself. I don’t like NHS staff begging or trying to get discount.
I’ve cried numerous times over what I have seen and experienced, but thought of doing that on cameras is abhorrent to me. What I feel most of the time is a quiet desperation, something I see mirrored in the faces of my colleagues every day. Quiet desperation doesn’t look good on camera.
Just my opinion.

The brutality of the news reports in Italy in March helped the population's awareness and behaviour. We needed more in March.

Agree on the profiling of doctors not being totally the way to go. Yesterday I saw two nurses filling a morgue on the news and crying when questioned and I found that impactful. I think the generally cossetted population need to see the grim truth. Then they might stop going on holiday to Dubai/having parties.

Then the schools could go back

Even the daily death toll doesn't really make me feel anything anymore. Nothing really does. I don't need to be reminded of the misery everyone is in - whether it's NHS nurses, bereaved family members, students, children - I already am very well-aware.

Apart from the very, very privileged, or people whose lives were already extremely insular before all this, most people are utterly broken in some way in all this.

@BurrosTail

I think it’s helpful, actually, because the covidiots who have been sharing vids of “empty” hospitals have finally gone quiet on a couple of WhatsApp groups.

Yup. The conspiracy theorists on our school parent's WhatsApp group have gone quiet too.

None of it is balanced - it is propaganda. There are so few reports about the other harms of lockdown - mental health, people not being able to access medical help they need and the outcomes, domestic violence, child neglect, people drinking and doing drugs too much at home to get through etc etc.

I don't actually care about people dying from Covid anymore but there was a small piece on the local news earlier in the week about families with severely disabled children not being able to get school places and those mums (yes mums) having to give up work which reduced me to tears.

The NHS has had months to prepare for winter Covid and what have they done? Trained staff from other areas to work in Covid wards or ICU so that they can be redeployed? Changed the working patterns of HCP so they get more days off to recover from the emotional effects of working on covid wards? Looked at ways to support more people at home without them needing to be admitted?

Meanwhile care workers who go into older people's homes tend to be forgotten among all the NHS angels. And they don't get paid as much as nurses but are carrying many of the same risks and stresses. No film crew following Mrs Smith age 55 as she visits the homes of 8 elderly clients in one day, not know if she or her clients have covid.

I agree. It's OTT fear reporting. We get that it's nasty for some, like lots of other diseases, accidents, illnesses etc. I have barely watched the news lately. We don't need it ramming down our throats.
We see these reports but we're still bored, we still want to meet up with our friends and relatives, book a holiday. Those of us going out to work anywhere are weary of not being able to do anything else. It not selfishness its human nature.

Propaganda suggests misleading or inaccurate to further a political cause.

The TV cameras are a visual record of facts, of real situations. It’s not misleading.

This is not a political cause. Full hospitals are a national crisis.

Crying nurses...yes I’m uncomfortable about seeing it because it feels like the media actively want this - I’m a HCP who cries in private and would never cooperate with a public display. It is an emotional job at times. I dare anyone to tell people horrible tragic news and not be affected (you’re in the wrong job if that’s the case)

Do we need to see it repeatedly ...no. Do we need to call it propaganda and therefore dismiss the reality of what is going on behind closed doors...no.

Doesn't have much of an effect on me tbh. Not a covid denier or anything...and I obey the rules anyway. Whatever happened to the British stiff upper lip?!

Aaaand- The Royal Derby tonight (BBC News). Bloke in ICU being interviewed. Then a doctor. Now an ICU sister.

Now we're in ED. ED doctor.

But no sobbing nurse!

Turquoisebaubles "I doubt they cry on purpose hmm. Three patients died on dd's ward last night. She called me crying on her way home this morning, and has gone back in this evening for her fourth 14 hour shift of the week.

The reports may be pointless, and may be hard to watch, but ffs the lack of sympathy on this and many other threads is despicable.

You'll all be glad to know that she won't be sobbing over patients much longer. She has quit, as have many of the nurses she has worked with over the last ten months."

Don't you think the issue here is 14 hour night shifts and a hostile public (bar the Covid handwringing)?

I have fought, tooth and nail, as a union rep, to try and limit the compulsory introduction of these brutal shifts, but you know what? Having sought opinions on MN, it appears many, many HCPs want these long shifts. They're 12.5 hours of work, with an hour/hour and a half of breaks during them.

If she's doing 4 of them per week; she's either agreed to (overtime); or needs to get her Union involved if this is her normal pattern.

This is sort off off-topic, and not aimed at Turquoise, but I get a bit 🙄 about exhausted NHS staff who are leaping at the extra cash being thrown at us to do overtime, then fall apart witnessing heavy duty stuff, sobbing.

My Trust is offering a £20 ph uplift to the normal pay of any ICU trained nurse who will work overtime. Best of luck to them, who step up, but if doing so makes you sob... don't.

Seeing as "Covid denier" has become the latest buzzword on here - the thing to disavow at all costs - could somebody please define what that actually is for me? A genuine request.

My Trust is offering a £20 ph uplift to the normal pay of any ICU trained nurse who will work overtime. Best of luck to them, who step up, but if doing so makes you sob... don't.

Yeah, 'cos that's why they're doing it. Nothing to do with fragmenting colleagues, overflowing wards, SOS calls from the hospital for all off-duty staff to return.

It's just for the uplift.

I'm not sure you're the best person to be representing these people.

Propaganda suggests misleading or inaccurate to further a political cause.The TV cameras are a visual record of facts, of real situations. It’s not misleading

It's proganda because it is unbalanced. 60 million population in the UK. Repeatedly focusing on the 1,000 a day dying. Of course it is terrible, but is thee really no other news going on day after day? Why does this need to be the complete focus of the news night after night? It's very fishy to me. Also it doesn't talk about NHS disinvestment, how track and trace and isolate is shit. It's vaccine covid, vaccine covid ad nauseum.

@Januaryissodull

I don't find it helpful in fact I no longer watch the news now other than on a need to know basis.

I'm not a Covid denier and I'm well aware of what's going on and I follow guidelines, I just don't need propaganda rammed down my throat every 5 minutes.

Yes, I agree.

I’ve just given up watching the news. I follow the rules and do everything that’s asked of me and look up anything I may need to know via places like the gov website

Tbh, the hardened Covid deniers aren’t taking any notice either.

We have one at work - he calls it a scamdemic and is convinced the vaccine is a way to sterilise us all. He sits on YouTube every night with his likeminded groups and nothing or no one will change his mind.

Another of our colleagues is currently in hospital with Covid (is recovering well) but even that close to home, he thinks it’s fake news, we all stupid and “sheeple” who need to open our eyes as it’s all a con.

Not to derail the thread @Miljea but I really love working long days. My work life balance is much better than in my previous 9-5 role and I get two set days a week at home with my DD. They work for some people.

@Lockheart

I am entirely certain the 'nurses are lazy buggers who chat at the desk all day' narrative will return with a vengeance once they ask for a pay rise.

No need to worry, normal service will resume eventually.

'We've already had the 'nurses dancing on TicTok' remark.

Stand by!

@shindiggery

Your comments that first hand accounts have no place in the news are inane though, I will say that. I don't find the fancy name you've given it very impressive.

As for reporting repeatedly on the same unfolding tragedy, I find that view point as mystifying as if you'd queried why there are still a plethora of articles being written about Gren. and why those first hand accounts from relatives who lost loved ones are still finding their way into the papers. Both are clearly are in national interest, of public interest and have recurring themes. The last in no way detracts from the first two.

'Finding their way into the papers?'

😂

Nope, headlines on EVERY BBC NEWS REPORT at 6 and 10pm. Every night.

Tonight was Derby's turn.