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.

I don't watch the news now on TV, not just because of interviews etc because I find it too hyped up. I listen to a five minute coronavirus update when I feel the need to and have felt so much better since. It helps me feel balance between knowing the virus is out there and real but also knowing that I need to get on with trying to enjoy this portion of life for DDS sake, so she doesn't have a bitter, paranoid mum

@LivinLaVidaLoki your post makes perfect sense to me, and I do really feel for these young people and those fighting a loosing battle to support them.

It's feels like the press have forgotten we don't all live neat lives where the effects of lockdown are very hard but tolerable.

It's has become an awful existence for some, who are clinging on without any help and have been forgotten like they don't matter.

Last night's prolonged grave digging section by the bbc was the final straw for me. It reminded me of the dark scary adverts for hiv back in the 80s. They have got the balance wrong and lost my respect.

It's futile anyway- the people they claim to be trying to scare into compliance won't be swayed or moved by the coverage.

People who are in a living hell, have lost everything, are at risk of eviction, have had no financial help, who have a suicidal father and a hopeless young adult in our lives and whose cancer investigations have been cancelled are on the edge. We are following the rules, but beginning to question them- this makes us feel more forgotten and more like not complying.

Maybe I'm deluded but DH and I wish we had a job that would pay us at the moment, even one as horrific as working for the NHS.

If you read certain papers like the daily mail you will see there are plenty of people who think covid is a hoax and that most of the nhs is deserted. You will see people in high risk groups saying they don't care about covid regardless of their vulnerability to it and the resources they would take up if they got it. This foiotage is for them.

@Madhairday

I agree that politicians lie but see no reason on this earth why the vast majority of doctors, scientists, virologists and epidemiologists would willingly collude in a lie on this scale for... For what, exactly?

The government doesn't want us to be in lockdown. They want the economy working. What possible reason do they have for 'scaremongering' or manipulating us into fear?

No one ever answers this question.

Have you heard of Occam's Razor?

That.

Compliance.

BBC self serving propaganda - as was the piece to camera in the morgue.

On the BBC 10 o clock news last night they cut to Clive Myrie doing another report from the Royal Free. He has been there all week apparently. In going to the piece Sophie Rayworth gave the name of the cameraman and one other member of the crew. Why? I've never seen this done before. It's complete overkill. The reason for this intrusive (and I feel overdone) reporting is to give a wake up call to people who lack the imagination to understand what 1800 daily deaths from 1 virus can do to an already stretched health service. For the rest of us it is time to go and make a cup of tea. Seeing payients about to die and medics crying is not going to change my experience of this thing that every single one if us is struggling through one iota.

And as a pp very astutely said, surely it is frightening the life out if people who do have loved ones in hospital at the moment, or those who might need to go in shortly? Horrible viewing for them.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

HPC here - for 28 years. What boils my piss is that at one time and another and definitely in some areas there has been issues where hospitals are full, on full alert and no beds. As one example, in mental health, a patient can be sent miles (80+) from their homes or an A&E can have have Ambulances stacked outside. Basically the UK has not enough beds, HCP’s or community services in normal times so why the wall to wall coverage now? I mean I know there’s a pandemic an all but really there has been a pandemic of ineptitude with regards to providing good, person centred, properly focused and well resourced care for years now.

Very good point, @Ritasueandbobtoo9 .

[quote Buttercupcup]@Miljea hi op fellow frontline here I totally agree. I actually left ITU about 6 years ago as in one week I had 3 long days in a row and on all 3 shifts had withdrawal of care patients who died very quickly when switching off their support and I just wasn’t affected by it-I had seen it that much it was just routine ‘my job’. So I left as that wasn’t the sort of nurse I wanted to be I want to care and to some extent be affected by what I’m seeing as that is a family’s world breaking and that should affect us as humans. I worry the same thing is happening to the public they now see and hear it all the time so it just stops having any impact. My big issue with the whole management of the pandemic is how desensitised and dehumanised it has all become. It’s now normal for funeral to be invite only and not be able to comfort a grieving person, it’s now normal for people with terminal illness to not get to complete ‘bucket lists’ and see family. It’s now normal to break bad news over the phone etc etc I could go one. I cry for the loss of humanity. 10 years ago I love doing 3 long days a week it worked for me as a young single person and would have been the one fighting for it, but now I’m older a bit more knackered from years on the wards and a bit more battered by life the thought of 3 long days in a row makes me want to vomit. The NHS is so so broken but it’s not purely lack of funding that’s broken it, it’s years of running on good will (which has all but gone) but fundamentally it is not fit for purpose it was designed for cradle to grave basic health care of a much smaller less diverse population but that is a whole other thread.[/quote]
Absolutely right, @Buttercupcup. And as regards hugging or touching someone, I haven't done it in many, many months now and its normal. So normal that if I watch a film and there is hugging or normal close contact, it is weird to me .

I kind of feel the same - because I do feel the news coverage is more about the media feeling like they’re heroes by being in the coal face presenting (or in my eyes, exploiting) the situation for “news”

I personally find it interested to watch, it’s the only way I can get close to seeing what they are seeing and feeling. Yes it is their job, but when staff is down to 50% in some cases and patient numbers increase astronomically, they are under severe pressure and hopefully the sobering content will help the people who aren’t sensible to realise that this is real. I hugely admire what they do and I hope the NHS get the recognition they deserve when things settle, eg better pay! Nurse wages are pitiful in comparison to teachers and other public sector roles.

That said, the strain on the rest of the country is huge too, the missed illnesses, burnout, mental health challenges and obliterated economy etc is significant too.

I’m not front line, but I do work for a
Medical nutrition and equipment company and directly with the acute dietitians so my support is needed for various reasons. My primary age kids are at home because we have to have 2 key workers and hubby isn’t but works out of the home. The strain of trying to balance work, home and schooling is very difficult and my mental health has suffered hugely, to the point I could barely string a sentence together one day last week.

This whole situation is lose - lose and I just really hope the vaccination does what it needs to do so we can all start rebuilding.

I think people need to see inside the hospital it definitely shocked me I've stuck to the rules completely.
We lot 3 family members all 3 late 60's.

I’ve skimmed the thread.

Watching those scenes doesn’t change my mind on COVID as I’m not a denier, am rule compliant and know how bad it is. What it does however is make think about how bad it is for NHS staff and that despite how rough it is for me at home in other ways, I’m not faced with that every day, relentlessly. If I had to pay more tax for a pay rise for those people I would.

I don’t believe NHS staffed are ‘trained for this’. Yes they deal with trauma every day but not at this scale and who has experience in war-like conditions.

For balance I would also like to see clips of retail workers in supermarkets, delivery drivers and all the other key worker roles going about their day so some people stop being dickish to them.

@Madhairday I'm not saying that scientists all over the world are colluding in a massive lie. But I do think the government is being extremely selective about which scientists they invite to speak, whose views they publish, and so is the BBC. The scientists who argue against lockdown tend to be suppressed more. What I am saying is that it's obvious the government is telling us what they think we should hear, rather than the truth. For instance, at the start they told us "masks are not needed"; there has been some speculation that this was so the public wouldn't panic-buy masks. If they had been honest, and said "we don't know whether masks are effective or not", I would have respected the government more. It's "they're not effective" very soon followed by "they're now compulsory" which strips away the government's credibility; and again, they most likely gave greater prominence to the "experts" who say they are effective.

@WookieWoo

Those of you who think it's unnecessary....please come and spend a day with me.

I will introduce you to my colleagues who are living what you see on the tv. The very same images that are annoying you.

We are breaking and you need to see it. It's not just about covid. It's about every cancer operation I've had to cancel because it's too high risk for the patient needing ITU afterwards and we don't have any beds left. Better to let the patient live with cancer than risk them dying due to post op complications and lack of ITU beds.

The reality fucking stinks and we all need to shoulder that burden. Thank your lucky stars that, for you, it's merely in the form of an annoying news item.

I am sorry.

The news reports don't especially upset me. It's not pleasant and I'm sure it's stressful for staff, but no, I'm not upset. The only time I feel genuinely upset by deaths of people I don't know or tragedies are when it involves children...then I sob my heart out. But honestly, random adults, mainly elderly dying, no, I think it's a sad event for their loved ones but it doesn't make me personally sad although I'm not a monster and it doesn't give me any joy obviously.

I watched the BBC report last night and I was really appalled by the levels to which they have sunk.
It was not news it was propaganda.
We were shown a male nurse breaking down on being made to remember how he felt like he was dying when in the grip of covid infection. Bodies in a morgue and a close up of a muddy grave being dug then panning back to show a large muddy graveyard with open prepared graves no doubt there in readiness for You, The Viewer. All this was accompanied by a voice over narrating these images of doom.
Cut to Our Only Hope - a brave but exhausted doctor in scrubs urging us to have the vaccine.

The whole thing was sickening. It's not news or journalism. It's heavily scripted and directed propaganda designed to scare the population into obedience. The crying nurses are being cynically filmed to guilt people into compliance. Surely nobody actually believes that the government or the BBC give a shit about overworked, underpaid, exhausted nurses?

I was really shocked to see this blatant propaganda on the BBC and no matter what I think of covid, vaccines, the way the government has handled things, the NHS, etc, my main takeaway from the whole thing is that I find it deeply disturbing to have it demonstrated so obviously to me that the BBC is an untrustworthy propaganda machine for the government.

A free press is one of the pillars of democracy.

I'm in no way saying that I don't believe covid to be a serious problem or the vaccine to be untrustworthy (although I do think it is under rested). The BBC report did scare me but not in the way it was intend to! It didn't make me more scared of covid it made me worry about how the media is increasingly being used to manipulate public opinion on all manner of subjects and how they aren't even attempting to be particularly subtle about it.

@WookieWoo Thank you for the work you do.
It is very much appreciated.
It was hard seeing the morgue DM was in there for 6 days in 2 body bags.
She was always terrified of tight spaces funerals are usually 2-3 days in Ireland unfortunately the undertakers were fully booked in April.

former excellent post although I have long thought the BBC spouts propaganda.

The people they hope are watching this stuff aren’t.

Yeah, I hate it. It's mawkish, overly sentimental and just tedious and how many Covid deniers do you think sit through 15 mins of that crap on the nightly news? I'm guessing they switch over to something else rather than be lectured.

Ditto Priti fucking Patel giving the nation a talking to like some old-fashioned school marm. FFS, just vaccinate everyone asap! We're already in lockdown, the vast majority of us are doing as we're told, tedious and irritating though we find it, so do your job and stop lecturing us. I'm sick of it!

The news reports don't especially upset me. It's not pleasant and I'm sure it's stressful for staff, but no, I'm not upset
Good for you. I'm aware you suffered a loss at a young age maybe it has desensitised you to others losing loved ones.

former excellent post although I have long thought the BBC spouts propaganda
Really
Do you think they used mannequins in the report.

@LivinLaVidaLoki

I agree with *@Jourdain11* and other pp's that it just doesn't seem balanced. It's been raised here before about showing the other effects of lockdown and yes, we have seen people interviewed who are losing their businesses but not loads of them every night, Night after night. But what really gets to me is they can't "do a piece" (or whatever the term is) about the really ugly flip side of all this. Look atvworkers in children's services, looking first hand at what we have to deal with fighting for the most vulnerable people in society who are largely forgotten by this.

16 to 18 year olds living alone in "supported accommodation", the self harm, the suicidal ideation, the neglect and abuse....that's just for starters.
It all just seems like an abstract concept to these people, they see "a rise in abuse and neglect" on the news and see it in numbers. A handful of people. Collateral damage for the greater good. They have no idea of what that actually means for these children and those who support them who are at absolute breaking point too?
We see nurses and doctors cry night after night but where is the sympathy, empathy and compassion for the tears of our children?

Not sure if that makes sense, didn't sleep well last night.

This, in spades .

Honestly, the vitriol aimed at NHS staff never ceases to amaze me. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you, or in this case cares for you.

It’s comments on threads like this that make me wonder why I even bothered in the first place. It’s doesnt make a blind bit of difference anyway. You must get a lot from stirring that pot OP.

@emeraldshamrock

Putting the pressure on the NHS and staff aside, why would adults dying of covid cause me more upset than adults dying of any other illness? Death is not exclusive to covid. People die every day of numerous causes... surely most people don't sit in despair and misery at home because people they don't know have died?

Another aspect that the BBC and other broadcasters need to think about is the effect on recruitment to NHS frontline roles. I can’t imagine that repeatedly showing stressed crying nurses is going to encourage many potential nurses, plus will discourage some people who are considering it.

Recruitment to nursing roles in the UK is already struggling, partly due to changes in England a few years back that means student nurses need to pay more to study. Plus of course Brexit has fucked up recruitment from nurses across the EU.

Which doesn’t bode well for the future of the NHS and the next major challenge it will inevitably face, be it another pandemic or something else.

@Beachcomber

I watched the BBC report last night and I was really appalled by the levels to which they have sunk. It was not news it was propaganda. We were shown a male nurse breaking down on being made to remember how he felt like he was dying when in the grip of covid infection. Bodies in a morgue and a close up of a muddy grave being dug then panning back to show a large muddy graveyard with open prepared graves no doubt there in readiness for You, The Viewer. All this was accompanied by a voice over narrating these images of doom. Cut to Our Only Hope - a brave but exhausted doctor in scrubs urging us to have the vaccine.

The whole thing was sickening. It's not news or journalism. It's heavily scripted and directed propaganda designed to scare the population into obedience. The crying nurses are being cynically filmed to guilt people into compliance. Surely nobody actually believes that the government or the BBC give a shit about overworked, underpaid, exhausted nurses?

I was really shocked to see this blatant propaganda on the BBC and no matter what I think of covid, vaccines, the way the government has handled things, the NHS, etc, my main takeaway from the whole thing is that I find it deeply disturbing to have it demonstrated so obviously to me that the BBC is an untrustworthy propaganda machine for the government.

A free press is one of the pillars of democracy.

I'm in no way saying that I don't believe covid to be a serious problem or the vaccine to be untrustworthy (although I do think it is under rested). The BBC report did scare me but not in the way it was intend to! It didn't make me more scared of covid it made me worry about how the media is increasingly being used to manipulate public opinion on all manner of subjects and how they aren't even attempting to be particularly subtle about it.

I stopped watching the news years ago as I hated the overt manipulation and the reporting of 'celebrity' related events as 'news'. It isn't. I totally get what you're saying, @Beachcomber, its been insidious and is now completely unbearable. I always have, and still am complying 100% but questioning the narrative is not being a covid-denier.

I always have, and still am complying 100% but questioning the narrative is not being a covid-denier

I agree. It's really worrying that anyone who asks questions or attempts to look at the wider picture is branded a conspiracy theorist. It's like a modern day witch hunt. You must accept every single thing the government and media says and wail at the news reports to prove you're not a conspiracy theorist/denier.

North Korea couldn't have done it better.