Tearful and confused

[Hellscape]

I’ve just read two news stories that have really upset me. Both about children.

One is that children’s cancer operations are being cancelled because of covid pressures and the second is that doctors are seeing an alarming increase in children as young as 10 self harming.

‘Children are a lost tribe in the pandemic. While they remain (for the most part) perplexingly immune to the health consequences of Covid-19, their lives and daily routines have been turned upside down.’

‘ Lockdown "massively exacerbates any pre-existing mental health issues - fears, anxieties, feelings of disconnection and isolation," says A&E consultant Dave Greenhorn.’

What is going on?
Why are we not seeing the harm this is having both physically and emotionally/mentally on the children of today?
Why is covid being prioritised over everything?
Please help me understand.

I’m absolutely distraught at the thought of how this is going to impact so many kids over the next couple of years and beyond, not to mention the economic hit.

How is crying going to help?

Children's MH services have always been awful sadly.

Basically, they can't have adults dropping dead and the pandemic increasing. It has to be treated and hopefully controlled.

@CreditCardHelpPlease

How is crying going to help?

In all seriousness, have you ever thought about what motivates you to post remarks like this?

Humans cry when they are upset, it is a normal emotional response.

You’ve just realised children’s mh services are woeful?

You are talking as if someone has made a decision to cancel cancer operations and treat more Covid patients.

That’s not what’s happened. Hospitals have become overwhelmed with Covid patients, and there are no staff, time, space, resources left for some cancer treatments.

Nobody chose this.

They only people you can blame are the non- mask wearers/ non social distances/ Covid deniers, etc, who have contributed to the spread.

And many children have been bereaved, or seen parents struggling for breath, or have relatives left disabled, or have lost teachers, who are dead/ disabled/ leaving teaching to care for relatives etc.

Nobody chose that either.

What do you mean ‘why Isco is being prioritised over everything’?

We are in a pandemic. The disease is prioritising itself

My preschooler is awaiting a major operation at a children's hospital which is delayed. We're hoping it can be done in time to avoid more intervention needed later, as there's an optimum window for the correction to be done.

It's delayed due to Covid pressures, but this would be the case lockdown or not (in fact I imagine it would be delayed much longer if there were no lockdown as the pressures would be far greater still)

So in that respect, Covid is not being prioritised as such but the delay is the unavoidable result of the pandemic. I can't imagine how awful it must be for children and adults not able to access cancer operations though.

The impact of the lockdown is also a concern though and as parent to a baby and a preschooler I worry about that too.

You ask: "Why is covid being prioritised over everything?"

But you answered your own question: "One is that children’s cancer operations are being cancelled because of covid pressures"

Imagine how much more hospitals would be over run without these measures?

Why are we not seeing the harm this is having both physically and emotionally/mentally on the children of today? We are seeing it. Teachers, social workers, doctors, parents - we do all see it. The real question is why is the government offering virtually no extra support. The answer is because they are a Conservative government who do not believe in funding state support for children.

Why is covid being prioritised over everything? Because if we were not locked down, it would be even worse and even more surgery would be cancelled. We can't prioritise anything but covid right now.

I also find it very concerning.

Perhaps you could try to think of one small thing you could do to make something better. Today I took an action that will help some struggling young people locally, that's all each of us can do.

It's awful OP. Children aren't just a lost tribe, they're a group of people that have actively been trod on during this pandemic. I can't get over the selfishness of adults, particularly the ones who complain that play parks shouldn't be open, or who have shut their children in the house since last March. One woman I know wouldn't even let her kids in the garden.

I didn't realise they were cancelling life saving surgery for children though. That is absolutely tragic.

@inquietant exactly. Just reading another thread discussing exactly this. Naha are people being so aggressive to a simple question. It's awful really. Click here and perfect example.

OP your speaking to the wrong crowd. You will find no sympathy here for kids. The virus effects mainly older people - so that’s all we’re supposed to give a shiny shit about.

@CreditCardHelpPlease

How is crying going to help?

Today's Empathy Vacuum Award goes to...

Seriously, what is wrong with a person that they immediately feel the need to sneer at a person who just wants to talk.

The operations or treatment being cancelled for anyone is awful but leaving covid to run wild would be far worse.

The message isn’t getting through to many re stay at home, don’t break the rules, don’t send children to school unless no other choice as a keyworker etc. The more mixing, the more spread and the impact of that affects other areas.

I'm sorry you've only just realised this VIRUS is having a dreadful impact on lots of people & some of those people are children.

The VIRUS is causing this - not the lockdown. Without the lockdowns the impact would be even worse.

For over a year now the message has been 'save the NHS' I'm not sure how you've missed that or if you heard it, what you thought it meant?

I don't know how to reach people that still don't understand.

Honestly, I feel nothing reading this. It was going to happen. It could be seen from a mile off. Not all can be saved, so the covid patients are the prioritised ones because they are the ones banging the door down (its surely just a coincidence that they are voters and tax payers). They have to be seen NOW. All the rest are forced to wait and die if that is what happens. The kids arent a priority because there is no space for them to be a priority.

I try not to think about it all. It's too much of a mess to worry about. It's going to happen whether I worry about it or not. Being numb and accepting we have no control over how fucked we are is best I find.

The operations or treatment being cancelled for anyone is awful but leaving covid to run wild would be far worse.

Tbf leaving covid to run wild while pretending that schools weren’t driving infections was how we got in this mess and ended up with children’s operations being cancelled because the healthcare system is overwhelmed.

OP, ‘flattening the curve’ and allowing covid levels to run ‘hot’ but just keeping the numbers under the level that the health service gets overwhelmed was always a risky strategy that ran the risk of the wheels coming off if something went wrong. Unfortunately the wheels did come off and we’ve got to the point where hospitals are having to postpone treatments leading to long term consequences in order to treat people who need treating immediately or they will die now.

Having large numbers of parents in their 40s and 50s dying from covid that might otherwise have survived in order to treat children probably isn’t going to do much for the mental health of children either.

I doubt being in hospital and receiving cancer treatment during a covid outbreak is entirely risk free for the children either. It’s just that if the treatment is delayed it’s a tragedy, and if they die from covid they’re written off as having had an underlying condition.

People will die regardless of what we do. Children will suffer regardless of what we do. There isn't a shiny solution that we are ignoring. What we can do is try to model positive behaviour and ensure as adults, we are as fit and healthy as we can be, to reduce the impact on our families and our society.

In terms of things like cancer ops, a hospital does need to be able to offer vulnerable patients treatment without a huge risk of contracting a potentially fatal disease at the same time. And hospital acquired infections are very high right now.

Children may not generally be particularly vulnerable to COVID but children with suppressed immune systems most certainly are. The best thing we can do for such children is to push the infection rate down as far as possible.