Covid: Liverpool's intensive care wards full of young unvaccinated patients

[DumplingsAndStew]

Apologies if this has already been posted, I had a quick look down the thread list and didn't see any title that suggested it had

www.itv.com/news/granada/2021-12-22/covid-liverpools-intensive-care-wards-full-of-young-unvaccinated-patients

@EnidSpyton

Thank you for that post. Says everything I think, but am not eloquent enough to express.

@Starcup - I think you may find @hamstersarse is correct in the figures she quotes.

Specifically, some 42% of people admitted to hospital in England the last month were unvaccinated, despite people who haven't had a single dose making up only 19% of the population.

Source: UK Health Authority Agency

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1041593/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-50.pdf

(Sorry if this hasn’t popped up in your social media 😉**

@MyrtlethePurpleTurtle

Ok, so are saying that the particular thread and the doctors and nurses at this particular hospital are misinformed? And therefore wrong?

[quote EnidSpyton]@PinkTonic

No one is being 'thrown to the wolves' to prioritise the 'terminally stupid'.

We have enough ICU beds and ICU capacity for everyone at the moment, regardless of the reason why they might need ICU. No one is missing out on medical treatment in an ICU because of an unvaccinated person 'taking up' a bed.

@Watapalava's phrasing shows she doesn't understand what her 'ICU nurse friend' has said.

Doctors have always had to make decisions about who should get ICU treatment. This is no different for covid.

For people whose only knowledge of medicine is watching Casualty, it is probably difficult to understand, but a considerable number of people who receive ICU treatment and survive to leave hospital, never truly recover their health. Many die within 12 months.

ICU treatment is brutal on the body. Not everyone will survive the treatment, and many who do survive will not regain a meaningful quality of life afterwards. Doctors have to weigh this up when deciding the best course of treatment for their patients. There is much debate amongst the medical profession about this - prioritising life over quality of life. The decision to put an 85 year old on a ventilator for 3 weeks is not a straightforward one. If they survive, only for them to have six months of severely compromised, highly medicalised quality of life afterwards before they inevitably die, is it really worth putting their body through that trauma? Obviously it's a discussion to be had with the patient (if they have capacity at that point) and their family, but medical professionals have to be realistic about people's prognosis. Unlike in hospital medical dramas, people don't just wake up from comas when they've been on ventilators and a plethora of other machinery to take over the work of their vital organs for several weeks, and jump straight back into their daily lives. It takes weeks and months of physical therapy to get back to fitness, and for people who are already weakened by age or severe illness, often they will never get their full fitness back and will rapidly decline and die shortly afterwards. Look up post ICU death statistics. The chance of death compared to the general population increases enormously after a stay in ICU.

I really wish people on Mumsnet with very limited knowledge of medicine, public health, or statistics, would stop posting absolute rubbish. It's so misleading and is continuing to lead to a horrible witchhunt against people who aren't vaccinated.

It is not unvaccinated people's fault that the pandemic still exists. Hospitals are not full because of unvaccinated coronavirus patients. The government would like us to think this so that we are distracted from looking at their failures. Please don't buy into this narrative. It's only serving to divide us. Demonising and othering those who have made a different decision to you does not make them stupid. We are living through a terrifying time and everyone's trust in authority has been shaken. For some that means having the vaccine is not something they feel they can do because they are frightened and mistrustful of their government. I don't agree with them but I do understand why they feel as they do. I have compassion and empathy for them. I would never in a million years say they shouldn't have access to healthcare or that they are selfish and deserve to die. People who genuinely think this attitude towards other human beings is acceptable need to take a bloody good look in the mirror and sort themselves out.[/quote]
What about all the operations that can’t happen because the ICU doesn’t have capacity? People who need to be allocated a bed overnight after surgery are being bumped by Covid patients bed blocking in ICU?

@XenoBitch I don’t particularly want graphic footage, but I do think there’s a disconnect between peoples concept of what is happening and the actual reality of it. It’s undeniable that most of us are comfortably cocooned away from the realities of covid, in fact the realities of most medical issues that don’t affect us personally.

Reports from India during the wave of delta were incredibly graphic imho but didn’t translate into people here being able to apply what was happening there as a larger scale of what happened here during our first wave. Even reports from New York (which is arguably closer in culture to us) in the first wave, which were incredibly disturbing, didn’t seem to register as the same thing that was affecting us.

@PinkTonic

Where does your logic end?

What about all those patients having surgery for cancer caused by poor lifestyle decisions? Lung cancer patients who smoked 50 a day for years? Liver cancer patients who are alcoholics?

What about the people in ICU with covid because they're obese, caused by poor lifestyle decisions?

What about the vaccinated people in ICU who refused to wear masks or socially distance and caught covid at a party with friends? Aren't they to 'blame' for catching covid just as much as an unvaccinated person?

What about the person who was speeding and crashed their car and is now in ICU after emergency surgery?

All of us in life make decisions. Some of them are good, often they are poor. Very few of us are blameless. All of us have weaknesses. All of us have vulnerabilities. All of us sometimes need help.

We are all human. Please let's not forget that.

Excellent post, @enidspyton. Most sensible and considered post I've read in some time.

@ginghamstarfish

How sad and at the same time very annoying for all staff involved, (please note I am not including those few who are not vaccinated for genuine medical reasons), in addition to those waiting for cancer treatment and necessary surgeries. As has been discussed in another thread, perhaps those who choose not to be vaccinated could also choose not to take up a hospital bed?

Or for that matter, how sad that 1 in 10 NHS workers haven’t had their jabs (per BMJ)

@KaycePollard

Most in ICU are younger given older people with comorbitities often are not prioritised for ICU - doctors are making decisions as to who gets such treatment. This is 100% happening which many don't realise.

This is really scary. Older people are still valuable and valued human beings. Presumably young unvaccinated people wouldn’t be in ICU if they had been vaccinated.

The implications of that are very unpleasant - particularly if you are considered “old.”

Medical colleagues who work in ICU describe it as "torture".

It's an endless, noisy place, where the lights never go off, you have no privacy, and people constantly come and hurt you. All you can do is lie there and anticipate.

PTSD afterwards is common.

It's also physically brutal and it's normal to have significant physical impacts months after discharge.

If you live that long.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for the older person you love and value is to not put them through ITU.

The doctors who make these decisions are generally very skilled and very compassionate. They don't withold ITU because they don't value old people. They do so because it's ethically right.

@User762980

Are you counted as vaccinated if you have had 2 AZ 6 months ago but no booster.

Yes - at least for the purposes of the UK Health Security Agency Report

I wonder how many of the people who were at the Anti Vaccine March in London last week, have a BMI of over 23 ? Hopefully some helpful sort will have been pulling them all to one side to explain that if they end up in hospital, its because they are fat and nothing to do with their vaccine status ?

@Honeyhorse

I’m 32 and unvaccinated because of a severe needle phobia, but trying my best to work up the courage to go after Christmas. I’m terrified of the jab and terrified of ending up in ICU.

I fee for you so much. My daughter has this and had nine attempts before she was successful - and that was thanks to a VERY Patient and in the end speedy vaccinator who kind of took her by stealth. She’s only had the one so far though.

Needle phobia has not been addressed enough in my opinion. There needs to be specialist centres offering one to two hour appointment slots specifically to support patients like you.

I also hate that you (and her) are being grouped together as if you’re anti vaxx. It isnt that simple.

Hand hold, OP X

Thing is these people aren’t just gambling with thier own lives, they’re blocking icu beds for other patients that need life saving surgery.
They are making hospital staff be redeployed to icu to take care of them meaning shortages elsewhere in the hospital

All because they want to do it there way, but are willing now to have hospital and medical intervention, drugs pumped into them & covid has some really nasty side effects

@ivykaty44

Thing is these people aren’t just gambling with thier own lives, they’re blocking icu beds for other patients that need life saving surgery. They are making hospital staff be redeployed to icu to take care of them meaning shortages elsewhere in the hospital

All because they want to do it there way, but are willing now to have hospital and medical intervention, drugs pumped into them & covid has some really nasty side effects

Is there a shortage of ICU beds? Or is it a staffing issue?

XenoBitch Staffing

The description of ICU in pp (sounds pretty bad) and the video reinforce that I’m happy to have vaccine, my risk isn’t that high but it’s easy to do - no phobia which I accept makes it harder or medical reasons not to.

I seems natural to want to lower risk.

Why wouldn’t you? Is it age mostly? Which I can’t comment on outside age I am

I fee for you so much. My daughter has this and had nine attempts before she was successful - and that was thanks to a VERY Patient and in the end speedy vaccinator who kind of took her by stealth. She’s only had the one so far though

Needle phobia has not been addressed enough in my opinion. There needs to be specialist centres offering one to two hour appointment slots specifically to support patients like you

I also hate that you (and her) are being grouped together as if you’re anti vaxx. It isnt that simple

Hand hold, OP X

@Tiredalwaystired

Finally someone who understands, and is not coming out with stuff about how the needle is tiny etc.

I think specialist centres would be amazing. I somehow managed to have jabs as part of my HCP training, and had to have end of day appointments. I had a 90 minute slot with two OH nurses.
Trouble is the Covid vaccination centres move everyone through so fast. They don't have time to talk you round for an hour.

But then so many people think it is as easy as popping a benzo and just showing up with your sleeve rolled up. It is so much more than that.

@ivykaty44

XenoBitch Staffing

So why blame patients for a staffing issue?

XenoBitch If you want an idea of what’s happening and the ripple effect have a watch if BBC2 hospital at COventry university hospital from 2021 winter/spring

It gives an indication of what the consultants were faced with last year, this was obviously before the under 60s were vaccinated

@XenoBitch

I fee for you so much. My daughter has this and had nine attempts before she was successful - and that was thanks to a VERY Patient and in the end speedy vaccinator who kind of took her by stealth. She’s only had the one so far though

Needle phobia has not been addressed enough in my opinion. There needs to be specialist centres offering one to two hour appointment slots specifically to support patients like you

I also hate that you (and her) are being grouped together as if you’re anti vaxx. It isnt that simple

Hand hold, OP X

@Tiredalwaystired

Finally someone who understands, and is not coming out with stuff about how the needle is tiny etc.

I think specialist centres would be amazing. I somehow managed to have jabs as part of my HCP training, and had to have end of day appointments. I had a 90 minute slot with two OH nurses.
Trouble is the Covid vaccination centres move everyone through so fast. They don't have time to talk you round for an hour.

But then so many people think it is as easy as popping a benzo and just showing up with your sleeve rolled up. It is so much more than that.

End of the day appointment sounds like an excellent idea. Totally get what you mean about the speed of the vaccination centres making things even harder.

Have you tried CBT? It’s our next step

So why blame patients for a staffing issue?

If they’d been vaccinated they wouldn’t need the staff to take care of them 1:1

@Narutocrazyfox

Excellent post, *@enidspyton*. Most sensible and considered post I've read in some time.

Very articulate and well written, but moot when they work on the arts field.

The way they were taking I assumed they were a doctor or someone in the medical field.

However, it's the unvaccinated ones, no matter what their BMI, who are in hospital in the article. Some of the die hard anti vaxxers on here are getting absolutely desperate now

@visitingagain

Yes we get that but would they be in hospital if there were unvaccinated but slim? That is the million dollar question. I suggest in many cases not.

@ivykaty44

XenoBitch If you want an idea of what’s happening and the ripple effect have a watch if BBC2 hospital at COventry university hospital from 2021 winter/spring

It gives an indication of what the consultants were faced with last year, this was obviously before the under 60s were vaccinated

And who do we blame for these headlines pre-covid?

I had a family member on a ventilator in ICU for several weeks. Nothing to do with covid. Once he was well enough they tried to get him off the ventilator. It was impossible and very distressing for him (we did not witness this). He could no longer breathe independently. Ultimately the life support was turned off and he died. It was absolutely grim and heartbreaking.

I do wonder if people refusing vaccines knew how brutal the treatment might be then they might think differently.

Well they made a choice and now have consequences Poor for the nhs staff though