Infection transmission in hospitals

[RosesAndHellebores]

I'd be interested to hear what others think about an experience I had at a local hospital last week. It was only for a blood test at phlebotomy.

Arrived to find a row of people waiting in an investigated corridor. They were being shouted at and moved along from seat to seat to sit in ticket number order. It was really heavy handed and I can't for a minute think that sitting in three chairs is more likely to spread infection than sitting in one. There were no wipes available to wipe the chairs either had people wanted to. There were also no instructions about where to get the ticket. There was no problem hearing the ticket numbers called in wherever in the queue one was.

On arrival at the hospital or in the phlebotomy suite nobody was asking if one was symptomatic and no form was filled in or scan taken, unlike in a restaurant during the last lockdown. The actual phlebotomy waiting room was ventilated and properly socially distanced.

The phlebotomy didn't ask about symptoms and I saw no evidence of chairs being wiped with anti bac between patients.

I find it ridiculous that the public have had their liberties curtailed to protect the NHS and yet NHS staff, in that unit, appear to have zero regard for infection control in relation to Covid.

One has to ask about the extent to which transmission has taken place within the NHS taking into account that sort of lax procedure compared to societal transmission. If that is replicated across hospitals in the UK then the NHS has rather a lot to answer for.

Unventilated corridor that should have read.

Presumably they have your contact details so they don't need a form.

There's not really a lot you can do about unventilated corridors except just have fewer patients in and not use them for seating. They should have asked about symptoms, rather than just assumed common sense. They should probably have wiped stuff down, but tbh contact spread is far less of a risk than people breathing everywhere.

People had their public liberties curtailed so there's much less of a chance of any of the people you came into contact having covid and spreading it to you and so there were staff there to run the clinic. We could absolutely go 'well maybe this isn't 100% risk free so we probably shouldn't run the clinic' but that isn't exactly ideal either.

I do agree that the spread is greatly lowered due to lockdown and vaccinations and have never personally been that worried about catching Covid. However the infection control measures or rather lack of them felt very grim in a hospital. I have been responsible for a large workplace and had our staff paid so little attention to social distancing, contact details, and availability of anti-bac, let alone the member of staff yelling at people, I'd have been for the high jump.

It’s strange isn’t it. I visited A and E a couple of months ago and no one was asked upon arrival about potential symptoms etc. I wasn’t asked anything re covid until I had my observations done once I’d been in the waiting room for 30 minutes which I found really concerning as case rates were really high then.