How did a country with an international reputation for public health get it so wrong?

You seem to be misunderstanding me too Callistemon, so I am not going to retract what I wrote.

I wrote that I could not deny any criticisms of the hospital board because I don't know enough about it. I have no evidence either to agree with the criticisms nor to deny them.

I simply don't know what the basis of the criticism that the hospital has the least well equipped ICU in the whole of Western Europe is. I do know that some ICUs, A&Es and other non-Covid wards have experienced lack of equipment throughout the UK. I don't have the data and, quite simply, don't know why some are worse affected than others.

However, I do know that at one stage Newport and its surrounding area was a Covid-19 hotspot and the hospital found it difficult to cope. Apparently, the hotspot has now moved on to another area of Wales. That's a pattern which is being repeated throughout the UK and one which could be controlled with better management of tracking, testing and isolation.

Of course the hospital found it difficult to cope with a surge in infections, as would any hospital. I was interested in knowing why the area should have been a hotspot. After a little research, it appears that there are some theories, but nobody really knows.

It appears that a single case probably resulted in multiple infections, which again highlights the need for rapid tracking, testing and isolation.

Either some posters do not read posts properly or I have not made myself clear, growstuff

Nowhere have I said that a hospital infected a population

I should be pleased if you would retract that accusation.

I said that as the consultant in charge of the ICU said, thatmthey were apparently the least well equipped ICU in the whole of Western Europe.
The staff are caring for their patients to the utmost of their abilities and I have immense admiration and respect for them.

And yes, I know staff members and members of the public who were infected in the hospital on other wards.

However, the CE has made some rather odd claims at the beginning of this crisis.

I am copying a tweet in full from a London Cardiologist.

I’m unclear how this government can recover after this?

From The Telegraph 12 May

A Covid cardiologist at a top London hospital (friendly to Boris) has been so incensed by the daily charade of bogus omniscience that he vented his spleen in an email to me on Sunday night. It is a poignant indictment, so I pass along a few snippets
1/6

Basically, every mistake that could have been made, was made. He likened the care home policy to the Siege of Caffa in 1346, that grim chapter of the Black Death when a Mongol army catapulted plague-ridden bodies over the walls.
2/6
“Our policy was to let the virus rip and then ‘cocoon the elderly’,” he wrote. “You don’t know whether to laugh or cry when you contrast that with what we actually did. We discharged known, suspected, and unknown cases into care homes which were unprepared, with no...
3/6
... formal warning that the patients were infected, no testing available, and no PPE to prevent transmission. We actively seeded this into the very population that was most vulnerable.

“We let these people die without palliation.
4/6
The official policy was not to visit care homes – and they didn’t (and still don’t). So, after infecting them with a disease that causes an unpleasant ending, we denied our elders access to a doctor – denied GP visits – ...
5/6
and denied admission to hospital. Simple things like fluids, withheld. Effective palliation like syringe drivers, withheld.”
6/6

Thank you for your comments Casdon and Elaine1.

It's not to do with the nations within the UK, slightly to do with different areas but mostly to do with bureaucracy, top heavy management and most of all not enough money. We all need to pay more NI to bring the NHS back to being as good as European nations because over the last several years each NHS Trust has had to make millions of savings EVERY YEAR - believe me as I have recently retired as a nurse and this has been drummed into all of our meetings with management!!!
Also Care Homes - no one cares about the staff, residents unless they fail then measures are put in to improve but rarely continued as there is no money to oversee them regularly and the staff are paid barely over minimum wage for long shifts. Staff that are very good are encouraged to either train as nurses or apply to NHS because there are more opportunities and better pay structures however in England the bursary has been taken away so anyone with children or other commitments have to pay uni fees to train and not have a bursary which excludes many exceptionally good and experienced carers from obtaining further training. I suppose in a short sentence "you get what you pay for" and in the UK over the last 10 years or more most health boards are in minus figures year on year. There have been many programmes over the last few years highlighting how doctors and staff have to cancel surgeries, hospital admissions, transplants etc due to lack of beds, lack of nurses, lack of specialists - lack of money and lack of forward planning and lack of resources is the cause of this in the UK! And I'm not even touching on Covid-19 - this was before that!

Thank you Casdon.

I wouldn’t comment on something I haven’t watched and didn’t understand, I do work in the NHS and I can promise you this is how it is everywhere, and I’m sorry to say if you choose to believe for whatever personal reason that isn’t the case, that you are indeed deluding yourself. There will be hotspots, they do tend to be linked to deprivation, and Gwent isn’t now the hotspot in Wales, it’s been overtaken by Rhondda Cynon Taf, and if you look across the whole of the U.K. that’s the pattern everywhere - the North East, Birmingham, London etc. etc. all have hotspots. Please do your research before making wild political accusations (and no, I’m not politically affiliated to any party).

time you all cooled down and went to bed I think!

Callistemon I've just been reading about it on the BBC and WalesOnline. It seems there are a number of theories, some of which seem a little far-fetched.

Apparently, right at the beginning, a patient was admitted to hospital and told staff he had asthma. He failed to say he'd just returned from Italy, where he had been infected. By the time the diagnosis was made, many hospital staff had been infected.

However, that doesn't really explain why the area has become a hotspot. You'd have to trace and follow up some more of the original cases.

Whatever the failings of the hospital board (and I'm not denying them), you can't really blame the hospital for infecting the population. Apparently, they started testing earlier than other parts of Wales, so more cases have been identified, but speculation is a waste of time without hard statistics and evidence.

We've seen how just a handful of cases can increase the amount of infection exponentially. At one point, cases were tripling every few days, so just one case could become over 200 within two weeks. It could just have been bad luck.

I am not delusional not have I lost it.

If the consultant in charge states the facts then I, for one, am inclined to believe what he says.

The article, from such a respected source, is quite quite terrifying. Political dogma, general incompetence, an unwillingness to listen and learn. And people are dying. This government has blood on its hands.

Proper measures at the start would have saved many lives: closed borders, quarantine, testing, contact tracing - where were they? Ordinary non-scientific people were asking them selves why planes were arriving from virus-ravaged Italy with no attempt to keep them away - normal common sense should have told them this was foolhardy.

We are all stuck in this mess and completely impotent. It is so very sad indeed for all those who have lost their lives, for their families, for businesses that will collapse, for our GC who will have to live with the long-term consequences.

A pandemic is bad and causes untold misery; a pandemic handled incompetently is unforgivable and wholly unnecessary.

Have you watched it?

What really scares me about this thread is that people actually think what was happening at the Royal Gwent Hospital is down to Welsh, or local management failings. This is the reality in every NHS ITU. PPE has been a massive problem for the whole of the NHS, and all credit to them for being honest enough to do a fly on the wall documentary I say.

Callistemon you are deluding yourself if you think it’s any different where you are.

Continuing to argue about 'who could do it better' is pointless. THEY are doing it. They need to do better.

I think you're losing it Callistemon.

EllanVannin (using your WHOLE name to avoid confusion for others), as I said, that isn't the point now. The point is that those that are in ARE the ones in charge and need to follow advice on how to deal with it. They are ignoring it and as a result thousands are dying.

OUR leaders are letting us down. The systems in place do not work at this time (IMO, they don't ever work, but this isn't the time for that discussion).

If the policies / systems they're trying to pursue now don't change, the virus is going to just run its course unhalted in any way which will mean we probably hit the high figure projection of 250,000.

Thank you for the link.

We will never know, EllanVannin, that is the conundrum.

But you made another.
Disingenuous, as I said.

Well, who would have done better ? It's a reasonable question to those who oppose the present government.

EllanVannin Sat 16-May-20 22:26:16
Any suggestions as to who would do better ?

My reply was at 22.27.

Her comment is ABOVE yours.

growstuff I really don't know why; however, the Aneurin Bevan Health Board area is very large and does not cover just Newport.

Ellan hadn't posted, Gaga, when you made your comment.

Don't be disingenuous!

Is this the hospital Callistemon?

www.itv.com/news/wales/2020-04-12/half-of-a-e-staff-at-royal-gwent-hospital-have-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-consultant-says/

So why do you think Newport is such a hotspot for infection?

Unless you're masquerading as EV,/EllanVannin, Callistemon, I think you'll find I wasn't talking to you. In fact, hadn't seen your comment because it must have updated while I was reading the points above.

Oh, several times, the underlying hostility is apparent on many threads.

I have no idea why as I have tried to be helpful,when she has been struggling.

I should not engage. My fault.
That is Gransnet, of course.