Dad, 27 dies days after discharging himself from A&E over fear he’d catch covid

[OrangesAndLemons2]

metro.co.uk/2021/01/21/dad-27-dies-after-discharging-himself-from-ae-over-covid-fears-13940963/

I really think the media needs to be held accountable for this. The complete blanket reporting on covid and the constant doom stories are keeping people terrified. Yes, awareness needs to be raised so that people follow the rules and guidelines. But when it comes to something like this, somebody, a young person, too scared to get help for another potentially life threatening issue, then it becomes a big problem.

It isn’t acceptable that people are going into hospital for unrelated conditions and risk catching Covid there. There should be better infection control. Sadly hospitals have always been generally filthy in my experience so it’s not surprising.

But many, many more people recovered from Covid yesterday. No body is reporting about that.

Most grown ups can minus death figures from tested positive figures.

Why do you need someone else to soothe you?

The papers have made it seem like it kills 99% of people, not that most people have it mild and are fine afterwards - which is also just the truth.

I challenge you to produce a newspaper report that says Covid-19 kills 99% of people.

This man made a choice. It has been very well reported that young people are at low risk of becoming seriously ill from Covid. The risk of either him or his young daughter becoming very ill from the disease was small. So he had to weigh up the risk of staying in and catching an illness that almost certainly wouldn't kill him and going home without his chest pains being diagnosed.

I don’t just think it’s the media though, I think it’s people’s attitudes, here on mumsnet for example, you would think the only illness in existence or worth bothering about is covid. Mental health especially seems to be something that should just disappear.

There needs to be a balance. Hospitals are filling up with covid patients but it’s leaving little room for anything else. We need covid hospitals and non-covid hospitals -this seemed to be happening but now the non-covid ones are used for covid patients.

I know someone who had a baby recently caught covid in hospital and she is now in intensive care.

Mental health services, the small amounts that did exist in the NHS has basically disappeared. There will be a mental health crisis greater than ever before -just the amount of clinical workers who are suffering from ptsd is staggering-let alone the general population who have developed mental health issues during the pandemic or not been able to access their usual support during it.

I know a cancer patient denied life extending treatment as it’s not life saving because of covid.

We are starting to use the army in hospitals now but this needs to be ramped up. I actually think there needs to be a conscription of medically trained people. Nightingale hospitals could then open. Some jobs anyone can do, blood pressure, temperatures, pulse etc.

Covid patients are allover our hospital.......they're in their own bays but certainly don't have their own wards and I imagine that's repeated throughout the country. Especially in areas like ours where there are about 300 beds covering a population of 500000 over a wide area.

I can understand why he was so concerned......such a sad way to die though. :(

My aunt also caught Covid in hospital and died. It was devastating, she was 69, only just retired and had a very full life, she was in hospital for something urgent but very treatable. So yes showing the state hospitals does create fear but it is a real fear.

The media are absolutely right to continue to show people the real horror of what is going on so the importance of this godawful lockdown is understood is understood, not just be individuals but employers.

It’s a terrible shame, but he could have made an emergency appointment to see a private cardiologist the next day, or even gone to a different hospital.

Just because you’re next to someone in hospital with Covid doesn’t mean you’ll catch it. My elderly aunt was admitted to hospital with pneumonia and put on a Covid ward until they had ruled it out. She went back home and was fine.

@RoyalCorgi

The papers have made it seem like it kills 99% of people, not that most people have it mild and are fine afterwards - which is also just the truth.

I challenge you to produce a newspaper report that says Covid-19 kills 99% of people.

This man made a choice. It has been very well reported that young people are at low risk of becoming seriously ill from Covid. The risk of either him or his young daughter becoming very ill from the disease was small. So he had to weigh up the risk of staying in and catching an illness that almost certainly wouldn't kill him and going home without his chest pains being diagnosed.

i said "they have made it seem like" - i did not say they had reported that it does.

It has not been well reported at all every "unusual" death has been reported and sensationalised. There are adverts on the radio that say "if you bend the rules people will die" which is wildly innaccurate and scaremongering.

I am not saying he did the right thing, and i am not saying that he bares no responsibilty for his decision, he does, but you know what, not everyone is as intelligent as you, not everyone is as mentally well as you and i can easily understand why he felt the way he did.

People are uneccesarily fucking terrified and the press have an enormous part to play in that

@TheUndoingProject

1,820 people died yesterday. It is a doom story.

This

Absolutely tragic situation nonetheless

If he did die of a heart attack then he was probably right that getting covid would have been bad new ps for him.
I think this goes to show that having space in hospital isnt enough.

@OrangesAndLemons2

The title is meant to read ‘over fear he would catch covid’

Well this is this the issue - COVID is preventing people going to hospital, it is stopping people with other illnesses being able to get appropriate treatment. It isn't the media, it is the reality.

I have lost count of those I have treated who have come in for a leg wound or IV antibiotics (often because they stopped taking their oral ones) or other treatments who aught COVID in hospital and THEN became so unwell then needed COVID treatment.

His fears were justified, but the risk did not outweigh his need for treatment. Unfortunately with a shortage of staff this probably couldn't be explained to him. Why do we have a shortage of staff (more than usual)? Because of COVID.

A 27 year old has a very low risk of dying from covid. The media wont explicitly say that and when you mention it in public, you will be shouted down by a certain contingent.
The vast majority of deaths are in the over 65 category, the distribution of death isn't random or equal .
Even that article doesn't mention this, but they also can't as they'd probably be accused of encouraging people to ignore the lockdown or whatever.

I strongly suspect the poster who said he was in a yellow ward is correct.

And the poster who said people would have talked to him about the - balanced - risks of self-discharging is definitely correct.

Quite why people are using this article as an excuse to have a go at the media coverage of coronavirus baffles me.

He would have been told by experts what his risks were - nothing to do with the media. Sadly, he chose to self-discharge.

And I definitely don't understand why anyone is taking this as an opportunity to blame the NHS -the situation really is as bad as the media portrays it.

I find the OP's perspective baffling, largely because the media I have encountered is absolutely insistent that: were I to experience something worrying, I should go to hospital, and I shouldn't self-discharge.

I obviously encounter wholly different media from the OP - who presumably encounters a whole other world of media.

I also know that, if you fall into a vulnerable group, practitioners will have a very serious discussion with you about risk. And that you may then find you agree not to be admitted to hospital.

But, again, that is nothing to do with the media.

This story is really tragic - but a.) it's not on the media (which is the OP's point) and b.) I think there is probably - unfortunately - more to it.

People self-discharge, against advice, all the time. Unfortunately.

In this instance, anxiety about coronavirus was a factor.

But, if there is a take-away (and I think it's morally suspect to reduce someone's death to a Teaching Point), it's that serious symptoms shouldn't be dismissed - pandemic or not.

@Bythemillpond

Why the hell was he placed on a Covid Ward whilst awaiting his test results

I think I would have walked out too.
Who even thinks to do this sort of thing.
It is no good doctors and nurses crying about Covid and for people to be careful if they then go and put someone who hasn’t tested positive for Covid on a ward full of people with Covid.
That is another level of stupidity. Even if he had tested negative he could still have caught it in the time he was on the ward so his negative test meant nothing

If he brought covid into a "non covid" ward then that is even more people infected. That's how people catch covid in hospital. They were waiting for the test. The other way round is not ideal either. Its not stupidity its a lack of capacity.

@thecatfromjapan

100%

@OwMyNeck you really cant manage to reply without throwing the insults around can you?

You can just walk out of a hospital. Hospitals are so busy right now particularly A&E depts, there may not have been a doctor available to talk him out of it. The nurses would have advised him not to, but they can’t stop him.

At 27 he probably wasn’t seen as high risk of a heart attack anyway.

Someone I know died because he was too scared to seek medical attention for something because of covid, he was vulnerable to covid so didn’t seek help. He died the next day. It’s so sad 😢

Back in November 2020, dsis was in hospital for none covid reason. She was on a shared ward, covid patients got the side rooms and none covid patients got the shared rooms. She was told there were separate staff working with covid and none covid patients.

She did not catch covid as far as we know, but a staff member did.

What strikes me about this (and I have seen a few examples on Social Media) are the young couples with children that have no life cover to even cover the cost of a funeral. So the remaining friends/family set up a GoFundMe page (or something similar).

We took life cover out on a JLFD basis that covered the surviving Partner until our youngest was 18. This provided £400,000 worth of cover on a level term basis for £20 per month. We were 34 and 32 when we did this.

Surely it can't be that expensive to cover a family, for even a modest sum (let's say £50,000) until the youngest is either 16, 18 or 21. For two people in their twenties, with no underlying health issues, cover can't be that expensive?

Why is nobody giving these young people advice like this, especially when you have young children? It nowhere near provides a replacement for the loss of a parent, but not having to worry about money is one less thing for the surviving parent to be concerned with.

"Fallox But he wasn't on a Covid ward. I don't see how you would read that article as suggesting you could

• present at A and E to have chest pains investigated

and

• end up admitted to a Covid ward

I really don't.

He feared that - apparently - but people fear all sorts of things."

That's not what the article states though:

"But he became terrified he would get infected after being placed on a Covid-19 ward while waiting for the results and decided to walk out."

He was terrified of becoming infected AFTER being placed on a Covid ward, not terrified of being placed on a Covid Ward. Otherwise, wouldn't the sentence be 'he was terrified of... AND of being placed on a Covid Ward'?

"If he brought covid into a "non covid" ward then that is even more people infected. That's how people catch covid in hospital. "

Then he should have been on a ward with other people waiting for the results. Obviously, ideally should be alone, but I suppose they don't have that.

It’s a moot point whether he was placed on a Covid ward or a ward with Covid patients in it.

My aunt was placed first on a Covid ward as she was considered high risk from it, being 87, in a care home, with pneumonia type symptoms.

Once they decided she didn’t have Covid, she was placed on a different ward next to a patient with Covid.