Hospitals near me are not allowing visitors from NYD

[Workyticket]

I'm in the North East. Both local trusts have said visitors won't be allowed - i understand the reasons behind this and fully support it if it helps contain the virus and exposes staff to less infection

I feel for anyone in hospital atm though. Are all areas doing this?

Sheffield is doing this but not the children's hospital where the rule is 1 parent/guardian per patient. There are also exceptions for a range of reasons including end of life, childbirth and things like dementia, mental health and learning difficulties if the patient would become distressed without support.

@HermioneWeasley there's a hell of a difference bw needing support from a loved one during a mental health crisis and everybody and their dog coming to visit Aunt Beryl whose in for 3 days for a hip op, or whole families coming to visit a new arrival. Catching COVID mighr just be a bit of a snifflevto you but other people are more vulnerable. And vulnerable people are disproportionately found in or around hospitals.

@Porcupineintherough

Sheffield is doing this but not the children's hospital where the rule is 1 parent/guardian per patient. There are also exceptions for a range of reasons including end of life, childbirth and things like dementia, mental health and learning difficulties if the patient would become distressed without support.

Except many of the exceptions don't get the exception they should get...

@JanglyBeads

RTB, presumably the reverse isolation would only be worth doing for CEV patients anyway?

It would probably be the best approach.

To highlight some of the practical barriers i think you need to reflect on just how bad the existing staff and hospital facilities are a real issue. A hospital with buildings in some level of disrepair is going to have infection control issues anyway - we know that research into SARS and covid have both identified infection problems via ventilation shafts and shared sewers. My local hospital is in a dreadful state. They been trying to apply for a brand new site and building for a number of years because of the cost of upkeep for the current building and how its really no longer fit for purpose. Its far from the only hospital with similar issues.

BIL (who works in a completely different hospital) was explaining how one particular department (non covid) would need to be split into two areas to be compliant with new hospital rules coming in. It was a small specialist unit - with a limited specialist staff. You can't have hot staff working cold areas. So he had no idea how they could manage that. He also said that the building itself was problematic because it had two bays but no doors between them. And they needed to maintain male and female areas for patient dignity.

So options on the table would have to be more mixed wards. And installing new doors somehow to try and put in infection control - but he did not know how you would do that. Or where the money would come from. Infection control on wards split in the middle was proving a nightmare if you didn't have this type of permanent barrier as part of it.

And that also didn't address the staffing issue nor the toilet issue that arose from splitting the department.

(and ignores other more complex issues with shared ventilation and sewers completely)

I got the impression he very much thought under the circumstances it was at the point where it was an exercise in shuffling the deck chairs on the titanic rather than anything meaningful because of the degree to which splitting staff who were already short handed was affecting patient care negatively anyway.

You have to ask the crucial rather cold question about whether you end up losing more patients setting up split specialities or just not worrying about infection control because its flogging a dead horse now.

I definitely think you have to consider whether certain conditions are particularly at risk - so yeah immunocompromised patients perhaps do need a different approach to at least attempt isolation for covid negative patients. But not necessarily a blanket approach for an entire hospital because its just not practical nor possible.

@Jellykat

Our local hospital has been thus for a week now.. I know because a very dear friend passed away last night, she had no one there..and i wasnt able to say Goodbye.

I'm very sorry to hear that. Big hugs xx

A third of Covid cases in hospital did not have Covid when they arrived in hospital.
So they must have caught it there.
If you are in hospital you are already at extra risk due to your body having to use a lot of resources to fix/treat something that is wrong with it.
What you don't need is a load of people coming into the hospital who don't need to show any vaccination status or proof of a negative test spreading Covid around the wards.

It is for the patients' benefit, and surely you should care most about your relative/friend's health primarily, if not about the health of the other vulnerable people in hospital.

people who genuinely need their Carer in hospital can still have their Carer come in and stay with them. This is protected and can be proven with Carer card/letter provided by your local carers' organisation.

@MilduraS

My parents are in Ireland and they aren't allowing visitors at all. My poor dad has been in hospital since before Christmas and hasn't seen my mum since he went in. He was also in for a couple of weeks in October and wasn't allowed visitors then. His illness is causing anger and confusion which makes my mum feel even worse about not being allowed to see him. The closest she got was when she was allowed to drop off a present to the front desk with his name and ward number. I haven't seen them in over 2 years and now I'm worried I won't see my Dad again.

Your poor parents 🥲I'll keep you all in my thoughts & hope you get to see him soon xx

@RedToothBrush

You can’t just let Omicron run through the patient population.

This really does my head in.

Even Chinese level authoritarianism where omicron is not widespread is struggling (failing) to contain omicron.

Its not a question of humans 'allowing' omicron to spread amongst patients.

Its science realising that the level of how infectious and widespread omicron already is, means hospitals trying to still stop transmission are King Cnut who is already up to his bastard ankles.

Its not a question of 'just let Omicron run through the patient population' - that assumes we have the ability to control. It was just about doable against Delta. We don't have the same ability against Omicron.

Its about time we started to be honest about this publicly and with ourselves.

But surely you're not saying they shouldn't even try? I'd be furious if I was admitted for my chronic condition (as I often am) and then caught Omicron from a visitor who wasn't there for an essential reason (obviously not including other patients with exemptions, as I have one myself and fully understand this).

@shortterm

A third of Covid cases in hospital did not have Covid when they arrived in hospital. So they must have caught it there. If you are in hospital you are already at extra risk due to your body having to use a lot of resources to fix/treat something that is wrong with it. What you don't need is a load of people coming into the hospital who don't need to show any vaccination status or proof of a negative test spreading Covid around the wards.

It is for the patients' benefit, and surely you should care most about your relative/friend's health primarily, if not about the health of the other vulnerable people in hospital.

people who genuinely need their Carer in hospital can still have their Carer come in and stay with them. This is protected and can be proven with Carer card/letter provided by your local carers' organisation.

Or perhaps you could ask how effective banning visitors was at improving infection control. Or whether patients were much more likely to be catching it off patients who were incubating on admission or staff they were in direct contact with much more directly.

I remain somewhat unconvinced that there is evidence to say that banning visitors would significantly reduce the problem of on ward infection due to the nature of omicron.

Yet i just see lots of people citing it as what we should be doing based on what?

We know that omicron in particular is evading infection control procedures and vaccine passports have failed. It needs to be seriously considered as its relevant.

If we are putting in these measures to ban visitors and still getting significant outbreaks on wards, then whats the point in the visitor ban? Genuinely?

Another who wasn't aware they had ever even re allowed visitors. Does this vary region to region / hospital to hospital ?

It is an awful situation all round, but I can understand it is about keeping people safe.

By now, possibly I would have thought there might be a more structured scheme for volunteers - who are all vaccinated and ready and willing to follow any policies / rules around infection control - to help out at hospitals, doing more of the hand holding, communicating with families, sitting with patients, etc to support the medically trained staff. Sort of like WRVS+

Must be regional as here has been 1 a day for an hour for a good few months here. I had an asthma cough (tested) and no one asked me about it at all which surprised me.

I think its just a terrible situation all round at the moment. Hospitals are being badly affected by staffing issues, covid on top of long term government lack of planning. They knew that in the last 10 years a lot of nurses would be retiring, nursing unions have been raising the alarm for years and they did nothing. The pandemic has only exacerbated the situation.
If staffing is severely short then you cant afford to have staff and patients being exposed to more people than is absolutely necessary. It wont stop transmission of this extremely transmissible virus, but it may slow its spread.
Unfortunately, though the vast majority of relatives are decent and responsible and would be a massive help in ensuring patients get their basic needs met. Its the minority who are aggressive, hostile, refuse to comply with infection control and constantly hound staff that would cause the issue.
People assume everyone is as reasonable as they are, but they're not.

@shortterm

A third of Covid cases in hospital did not have Covid when they arrived in hospital. So they must have caught it there. If you are in hospital you are already at extra risk due to your body having to use a lot of resources to fix/treat something that is wrong with it. What you don't need is a load of people coming into the hospital who don't need to show any vaccination status or proof of a negative test spreading Covid around the wards.

It is for the patients' benefit, and surely you should care most about your relative/friend's health primarily, if not about the health of the other vulnerable people in hospital.

people who genuinely need their Carer in hospital can still have their Carer come in and stay with them. This is protected and can be proven with Carer card/letter provided by your local carers' organisation.

It can also come from the patients and staff themselves, not just visitors.

Two such examples/anecdotes from my own experience:

April/may 2020 - grandma in hospital with heart related issues and mini stroke, general decline. No visitors allowed at all, very strict. After 2 weeks caught covid - has to have come from staff really as she was in a ward no where near other patients and not a single visitor allowed until the evening before she died,

October 2020 - I went into hospital for blood pressure issues and risk of heart attack/stroke. 2 days later discovered I had covid, via a routine admissions swab. By that stage I'd been in A&E, 2 gp surgeries, 2 different hospital departments and a ward of 10 people. No visitors. I had covid before I went in but with non typical symptoms. I was in for covid related complications but that fact wasn't known at the time of admission, due to the ward type I was mixing with other patients and staff, as well as using the same bathrooms and toilets. I was quickly whisked to an isolation room, but after 2 days of mixing. I genuinely hope I didn't spread covid to other patients or staff, but it's likely I could have sadly.

I think it should be done nationally, apart from end of life care and the other exceptions Sheffield hospitals apparently are making.

people who genuinely need their Carer in hospital can still have their Carer come in and stay with them. This is protected and can be proven with Carer card/letter provided by your local carers' organisation.

What about those who don't need a carer but still need support? My DH is deaf and I'm not his carer but he does sometimes need my help when he can't hear.

people who genuinely need their Carer in hospital can still have their Carer come in and stay with them.

I'm sick of reading this. Many patients have had care needs ignored because they've not been allowed visitors to support them. This has been the case throughout the pandemic, not just for the past week.

It is inhumane. Dsis got diagnosed with neurological condition by herself. Then followed up by a brain operation to install a shunt.

She wasn't allowed any visitors, but the scariest thing was she was very forgetful at the time. Her first operation was cancelled because according to her no one told her, what her diagnosis was. Some doctors just came to draw on her head and they wanted to operate on her brain. According to the doctor I spoke to (she called me in tears & put me on loud speaker), she was told by an unnamed person.

Anyway, she had a successful operation the following week. They would have done it sooner but there were no theatre spaces left. From then on, we called regularly and asked her to call anyone in the family when the doctor comes. She did forget a lot, but she remembered to call us when the doctors came.

Our hospital was already not allowing visitors afaik - at least have been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer alone and all appointments, scans and operation was alone. I am far more concerned about delays than being alone but its not great and seems very harsh that people aren't allowed anyone when told they have cancer, one time they told me alone they thought was stage 4 and the appointments are also very short and factual then out. Its difficult though as more people mean more chance of covid and then operations get put back 7 weeks. And 100% beds full and short staffed as it is.

You can’t just let Omicron run through the patient population.

1)This really does my head in.

2) I definitely think you have to consider whether certain conditions are particularly at risk - so yeah immunocompromised patients perhaps do need a different approach to at least attempt isolation for covid negative patients.

Apologies for “doing your head in” RTB, but I don’t recall suggesting the blanket approach you accuse me of - and now you yourself suggest suggest that there should be a different approach for some patients.

vaccine passports have failed.

No they haven't. They've worked well in many countries.

It’s absolutely awful. My local hospital requires a Covid pass to get in now (not A&E afaik) so hopefully that enables visiting to get back to normal

. Anyone thinking patients don’t suffer due to lack of family there to help is very naive. I was able to visit my mum when visitors weren’t allowed in although most staff were amazing the care wasn’t great . Water and meals being left out of reach and a few staff not wearing masks properly were the most shocking things I saw and this was on a stroke ward.

@MrsFezziwig

You can’t just let Omicron run through the patient population.

1)This really does my head in.

2) I definitely think you have to consider whether certain conditions are particularly at risk - so yeah immunocompromised patients perhaps do need a different approach to at least attempt isolation for covid negative patients.

Apologies for “doing your head in” RTB, but I don’t recall suggesting the blanket approach you accuse me of - and now you yourself suggest suggest that there should be a different approach for some patients.

Only as a last resort and even then tbh i think its going to fail more often that not.

At least im fucking honest about it.

Plus if you have a smaller number of patients to protect you might (might) stand a better chance of using your limited resources / budget / facilities properly on infection control rather than the nonsense staged attempt at it.