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Original poster

anyone working in hospitals know when we are gonna start hospital treatment/surgery for non vivid cases?

39 replies

fightingSmiths · 07/03/2021 07:20

that's really. I am in the NW, have severe endometriosis for which I need surgery. Had a date but got cancelled due to covid and now told it may be another 2 years due to waiting lists. I am in daily agony now and have no quality of life left.

I appreciate many others are in similar boats for all sorts of conditions. I spoke to someone in the gyne department last week and was told nothing is happening yet (and nothing has happened for almost a year).

but with numbers coming down I was hoping it would be sooner than later. I appreciate we have a pandemic going on but I don't understand how people are denied treatment when they are left bed bound bound at times just because they don't happen to have covid. I am just desperate to get a bit of quality of life back.

OP posts:
Original poster
fightingSmiths · 07/03/2021 07:23

that must have been a Freudian typo - non-covid cases obviously (though I feel livid for being abandoned by the system I suppose)

OP posts:
Beaniecats · 07/03/2021 07:27

It seems a particular issue this in the northwest. Its a covid only nhs here

minniemoocher · 07/03/2021 07:29

Treatment is ongoing down here, must be a local situation - talk to your gp. I know people who have had major elective surgery in the past 6 weeks (sw)

ChameleonClara · 07/03/2021 07:30

Horrible for you Flowers

The system has had a severe crisis to deal with. Please don't blame the NHS, they have worked so hard but the situation has been impossible.

They are still working on non-covid treatments, although slowly of course.

The impacts of delays are devastating on individuals. Health professionals understand that better than almost anyone else but what can a doctor do other than treat the patients they can in the priority order?

There is no magic pool of extra doctors, nurses and hospitals.

VivaLeBeaver · 07/03/2021 07:34

Well I’m having surgery hopefully next week. It’s been cancelled 3x during the last year so I won’t believe it until I’m on the operating table. I was right at the top of the list though as I was supposed to initially have it done the week before the first lock down. The back log is going to be awful. I can well imagine it will be years before things are back to normal. They can’t magic more surgeons up.

Original poster
fightingSmiths · 07/03/2021 07:37

They are still working on non-covid treatments, although slowly of course.

they aren't. at least not in the North West. everything bar the most urgent stuff has been put on hold. We never came out of lockdown really, numbers stayed high a through the Summer. So we never got a relieve but nothing is happening.

I understand that we had a pandemic but I cannot go on anymore. I will probably lose my job over the absence and I have a severely disabled child to care for as well.

Consultant cannot do anything. GP cannot do anything. Only surgery will sort this.

OP posts:
AtlasPine · 07/03/2021 07:37

I feel for you so much. This is one of the huge prices we are paying for Covid. Ops have started in many areas - I suggest you go back to the gp and keep pushing. I truly hope it isn’t two years.

Alternatively - is there any way of raising the money to have it done privately?

Original poster
fightingSmiths · 07/03/2021 07:40

atlas my surgery would be in excess of 10k. Given that I will most likely lose my job and be on carers allowance (£67/week) for the foreseeable future, there is no way.

Strangly, my friend had the same surgery in a private hospital (local to me). If the can operate in an BMI hospital why doesn't the NHS wire cases that way?

OP posts:
MisgenderedSwan · 07/03/2021 07:41

@AtlasPine

I feel for you so much. This is one of the huge prices we are paying for Covid. Ops have started in many areas - I suggest you go back to the gp and keep pushing. I truly hope it isn’t two years.

Alternatively - is there any way of raising the money to have it done privately?

Many private hospitals are doing NHS non-COVID urgent work at the moment. The one I work at is hoping to get back to private work from April 1st. Currently there is very limited capacity for private work (has to be assessed by the NHS as being P2 priority in order to be granted theatre space). From April the hospital will be back to functioning as private healthcare.
Motorina · 07/03/2021 07:42

They're very much relying on good will, too, to get people to work extra shifts so they can have extra operating lists on evenings/weekends to catch up on the backlog. Goodwill amongst NHS staff wasn't great a month ago - we're all exhausted, have been giving and giving of ourselves for months, with PPE we know to be inadequate. People have been turning down extra shifts because they're just broken.

And that was before the paltry pay offer. There's currently a huge sense of hurt and betrayal in my team. That doesn't motivate people to volunteer to work extra shifts on their days off. If strikes happen - and I think they will - then the backlog will just get longer.

Sorry.

LacyEdge · 07/03/2021 07:44

So sorry you’re going through this OP Flowers I really hope they can move you up the list soon. It’s terrible.

ChameleonClara · 07/03/2021 07:45

I think it is obvious why there is a delay. The government have not given extra budgets to pay for private hospitals to do surgery, even if it could happen that way (assume they are not sitting with nothing to do anyway).

I understand it is dreadfully impactful but this is a political decision, Johnson/Hancock chose to risk and then amplify the second wave.

The NW has really struggled with covid. Absolute nightmare.

musicalfrog · 07/03/2021 07:45

Not in your area but we'll be getting back to 100% elective surgeries within a couple of weeks. It's looking promising all round I think.

VivaLeBeaver · 07/03/2021 08:00

@fightingSmiths

atlas my surgery would be in excess of 10k. Given that I will most likely lose my job and be on carers allowance (£67/week) for the foreseeable future, there is no way.

Strangly, my friend had the same surgery in a private hospital (local to me). If the can operate in an BMI hospital why doesn't the NHS wire cases that way?

At my local nhs hospital the operating theatres have been/had been turned into extra ICU wards as icu was overflowing. So they’d keep one or two theatres free for car accidents but the rest couldn’t be used.

I guess the bmi hospital weren’t doing this.

Some trusts have managed it better than others. I know of another trust (sadly not mine) which moved all of its elective surgery to a smaller cottage hospital type site which was big enough to have a few operating theatres. So operations were reduced but carried on even in the peak. They were lucky though they had this facility.

iwantmysay · 07/03/2021 08:03

Very low CV cases in our local nhs trust area, yet pre CV a hernia op could involve a 18month wait (this how long a friend of mine waited for a umbilical hernia op) went from being a simple few stitches to a mesh implant and 6 weeks off work.

I need a similar op, i have private insurance via work and its been 6 months since seeing the consultant, private hospitals aren't doing 'private work & atm have no plan to do so, they'll be used to reduce nhs lists instead.

anyone who swallows the tory line they prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed is a fool, we've had CV patients transferred from 100s of miles away, due to their areas running out of bed space, the media just don't really report the collapse of nhs services - as supported by the OP's experience.

Our nhs is just so underfunded for our population size and general health.

Tillytrotterisarotter · 07/03/2021 08:04

NE here and I had elective gynae surgery just before Xmas. This had been previously cancelled due to covid.

Londonnight · 07/03/2021 08:08

Treatment is going ahead in some hospitals. My mum is in for a procedure this week at Addenbrookes.

DazzlePaintedBattlePants · 07/03/2021 08:13

Cancer surgery has only opened up here last week (Eastern region) - previously we had no HDU beds available for post surgery.

Carrotcakeforbreakfast · 07/03/2021 08:42

My trust have been doing elective surgery all the way through.
Midlands hospital (with the worst covid rate in the country at one point)

Surgery which required ITU after has been the most stretched as we had no space at all in ITU and were using one of the theatre recoveries for an extra ITU.

It will depend on staffing levels too. We did have a couple of weeks where we ran a very limited service because we had no staff. Lots went off with covid at the same time.
We pulled staff from all areas to work on ITU for those there because of covid or on the non covid itu which was used for emergency patients like etc, bleeds on the brain etc.
I even did my stint on ITU and I'm a radiographer! Not an experience I would like again.

Speak to your GP again..hope you get it sorted.

Maidofdishonour · 07/03/2021 08:52

I’m sorry that you are going through this. I had endo for 30 years and countless surgeries. What helped me most was a 6 month treatment of Zoladex which put me into a chemical menopause. I actually had this twice, in my 20’s prior to me having 2 children and then in my 40’s. It was deliberately planned as a 6-month treatment prior to surgery so maybe your GP or consultant could consider this while you wait?

Original poster
fightingSmiths · 07/03/2021 08:55

@Maidofdishonour

I’m sorry that you are going through this. I had endo for 30 years and countless surgeries. What helped me most was a 6 month treatment of Zoladex which put me into a chemical menopause. I actually had this twice, in my 20’s prior to me having 2 children and then in my 40’s. It was deliberately planned as a 6-month treatment prior to surgery so maybe your GP or consultant could consider this while you wait?
maid, they are not even doing f2f outpatient appointments in my hospital. I have to wait now months for a phone appointment. I cannot get anything apart from pain killers which stopped working largely. I am really at the end of my tether. I had a particularly bad night again... I just don't know what to do. GP said there is nothing he can do to speed things up.
OP posts:
MrsTophamHat · 07/03/2021 08:58

I'm in Cumbria and my son has just been called for his delayed audiology appointment. He's going tomorrow. That will be face to face outpatients.

HolmeH · 07/03/2021 09:00

That’s so rubbish OP. I’m in West Yorkshire with stubbornly high cases & my mum had non urgent surgery last week to relieve symptoms of an autoimmune condition.. it was cancelled 3x last year.. I think things are getting going but I’m not sure what your options really are if your specific hospital aren’t. You could ask to use a consultant at a different one, you have the choice to be treated at whatever hospital you choose. My mum moved hospitals a couple years ago because our local one was pretty rubbish with her condition. Her GP recommend a hospital in Leeds instead as they were more specialised & because much bigger, had seen more cases of her fairly rare condition..

Original poster
fightingSmiths · 07/03/2021 09:18

If I'd be a dog, someone would put me down! You wouldn't let an animal suffer like that. Not sure why it's acceptable to treat humans that way Sad

OP posts:
Abraxan · 07/03/2021 09:27

Lots of places around the country are doing plenty of non covid and non urgent treatment, operations, etc and have done throughout. I know of a number of people who have had non covid treatment in the last year, including non emergency operations.