IF masks had to remain in health and social care forever - would you stay?

[airplanebluesky]

Purely hypothetical.

Have heard masks 'may' have to remain in 'certain settings' long term - who knows what that means but health and social care are the likely candidates for this given the mandatory vaccine rumblings and 'protect the NHS' mantra.

Would you remain in your roles if it meant mask wearing long term?

I'm a highly specialised clinician in the NHS and I don't mind masks at the moment given the circs but as a hospital speech and language therapist it is a MAJOR barrier to our communication input. It's also hot and stuffy in hospitals and shifts are long. I don't think I'd stay in the profession, it's just not what I'd want to do long term but I accept there may be a cultural shift in NHS working that's just not for me!

I don’t mind them, feel a bit surprised that we didn’t use them more regularly before actually. Hope we also keep the reduced visiting and attempts at distancing the patients from each other too.

I love my job (nursing) and I’ve worked a long time to get where I am, so I can’t see me leaving. But... my tolerance for the masks is getting lower. If I’m on an office day (that’s the majority of the time) I find I’m struggling to wear it all day, especially in a heat wave. I really hope we can get rid of them soon.

@SwayingInTime I've seen very little social distancing between patients! I'm ward based in elderly care mostly, do you mean in clinics / waiting rooms etc?

Yes I would stay no hesitation.

I expect masks to become permanent in most health care settings.

They actively interfere with good Social care... you try communicating with someone who is hard of hearing & has dementia while wearing a face mask.

Just came on to say what about SLTs. I'm going into my 2nd year training to be an SLT. Can't imagine the profession with a mask especially in terms of modelling speech sounds?

Yes, I'd happily continue with masks in clinical areas indefinitely.

But I'd really like to see an end to Zoom/Teams meetings and teaching sessions. Much prefer face to face!

Nope wouldn’t stay

I'm a paramedic and I think masks should stay in close contact settings where the patient is displaying possible infectious symptoms and/or coughing in order to protect staff (I've caught some nasty viral infections off at work over the years), and also where patients are immunocompromised in order to protect them for us.

I hope it won't need too long before we can use our own risk assessments for wearing them, or not, at outdoor trauma jobs. They are just an added level of faff that we could do without in these situations.

I would leave.

@lljkk

I expect masks to become permanent in most health care settings.

They actively interfere with good Social care... you try communicating with someone who is hard of hearing & has dementia while wearing a face mask.

@lljkk it's really hard isn't it. It's awful for the patients. I can't do full assessment with masks (and taking them off isn't allowed) so have to do the best I can. Not great.

@Beepbopadooda

Just came on to say what about SLTs. I'm going into my 2nd year training to be an SLT. Can't imagine the profession with a mask especially in terms of modelling speech sounds?

@Beepbopadooda it's not a great career to be in at the moment tbh.

Paediatric speech work is mostly (in my trust) being done online - which has its challenges but at least you don't need a mask so you can see what's happening. I don't think the SLTs can hear as well though to make speech sound judgements!

In the hospital we just have to do what we can. It's very hard to build rapport. I can't imitate oro motor exams like I used to for example when patients can't hear or understand. I could be anyone assessing them. There's a few of us with glasses and the patients just think we are all one person. It's very unsatisfying.

@SockQueen

Yes, I'd happily continue with masks in clinical areas indefinitely.

But I'd really like to see an end to Zoom/Teams meetings and teaching sessions. Much prefer face to face!

@SockQueen that's never going to happen! Teams will be here to stay 🤣

Hospitals, yes. Nowhere else

No, I wouldn't stay, I find them a huge barrier.

@EgonSpengler2020

I'm a paramedic and I think masks should stay in close contact settings where the patient is displaying possible infectious symptoms and/or coughing in order to protect staff (I've caught some nasty viral infections off at work over the years), and also where patients are immunocompromised in order to protect them for us.

I hope it won't need too long before we can use our own risk assessments for wearing them, or not, at outdoor trauma jobs. They are just an added level of faff that we could do without in these situations.

@EgonSpengler2020 I totally agree with you. There are many times when I wish I had a mask pre covid - infectious or extremely respiratory / coughing patients etc. I do nasendoscopy and we should have always been wearing a mask and visor but it was always a taboo. I think we were only allowed them for confirmed flu.

I just don't think it's in any way necessary long term for the bulk of patient input unless you are extremely up close and personal or there's a higher than normal infection risk.

Sadly I think it'll be all or nothing. And spun as a way to reduce general sickness absence as a bonus!

I've got a good 20 years of full time working left - I couldn't do it I don't think.

@wasthataburp

Hospitals, yes. Nowhere else

@wasthataburp why just hospitals if you don't mind expanding? Care homes are practically the same as hospitals but with more vulnerable patients. There's a lot that goes on in hospitals where you don't even need to get within 2m!

My daughters specialist TA gets closer to her all day every day than I do to a lot of my patients! Police work, public transport, residential care - lots of people have close working conditions with the public.

I have odd days when they annoy me, but in general I'm absolutely fine with wearing them. The more I wear them, the easier it is. I have to work alongside people very closely in clinical situations and I think that I would find it quite strange not to wear them now. But having worn ffp3 masks almost every day throug the first two waves, a surgical mask is no biggie in comparison.

Take a look at how major events change other things. I work in aviation, and as a result of various unsuccessful attempts to smuggle equipment to sabotage aircraft onto planes I now have to carry my toiletries in tiny bottles packaged into clear plastic bags which I must get out to be xrayed separately, I take my shoes off and have them xrayed, and also remove my belt, pen, and sometimes my name badge and hair grips too, depending on the strength of the metal detector. Each item of electronic gadgetry (including the company issue iPad) must be xrayed in a separate tray. For short haul crews this pantomime can be carried out up to 4 times a day. Because there is the possibility a crew member may be considering using their toothpaste or something to make a bomb. There is an assumption that a pilot who tries to take a big bottle of suncream with them is up to no good - in the years since the liquid bomb plot these extensive searches have become the norm, even though there was only one plot and it failed (same with the shoe bomber, but we still remove our shoes.) The general consensus of opinion is that even though we are about to be let loose with a 340 tonne aircraft loaded with 100 tonne of flammable aviation fuel, the most dangerous thing we have is a too-large bottle of mozzie spray or an undisclosed tube of lip gloss. All done in the name of safety.

I would think it would be fairly safe to assume that in the healthcare professions, now that it has been established that wearing a mask is the safe approach, you will not get any manager prepared to relax that rule - after all, who would want to be the person responsible for putting into place ‘less safe’ policies?

Over here in aviation we are worried about room confinement, longer duties and shorter rests in order to come into less contact with foreigners with variants being the ‘safe’ way forward, with the subsequent reduction in our quality of life at work becoming a permanent thing.

I find it funny that ppl don't realise that a lot of jobs used masks daily even before the Pandemic I use one every day in my job and I don't work in healthcare

As I said already @wasthataburp I used them daily pre pandemic...I don't work in a hospital.

i would exercise my right to be exempt and they would then need to sack me....for being exempt from wearing a mask, good luck with that one at a tribunal!!

I work in theatres so in ortho & vascular theatres we would wear them all day Pre pandemic anyway and obviously when scrubbed. We do have to wear them a lot more now of course (all the time in every theatre & around the department etc). I would stay though as it doesn't have much of an impact on my day to day work.

Dentist- will happily wear masks at work forever but will give up if long sleeved waterproof gowns for AGPs continue much longer. Life is too short to try and work with sweat running down you.

Maybe someone will come up with see thru masks, I would happily wear a mask, glasses or a visor if I was still working the wards and wish we had used them before with noro.