Dying at home from Covid 19

From the Guardian article:

The A&E chiefs’ minutes said that on the weekend of 4-5 April the number of 999 calls in which someone had had a cardiac arrest rose from 55 a day in normal times to 140.

The minutes also reveal acute concern among senior medics that seriously ill patients are not going to A&E or dialling 999 because they are afraid or do not wish to be a burden.

“People don’t want to go near hospital,” the document said. “As a result salvageable conditions are not being treated.”

A&E doctors believe that many of the extra deaths from cardiac arrest are due to Covid-19 which, by making it difficult for someone to breathe, puts serious strain on their heart. “Of these 85 extra cardiac arrest deaths a day in London, they must be mainly Covid,” said the head of one A&E department.

“We are going to more people that we are pronouncing dead. We’d average one a week normally, but I had days a week ago when I was doing three or four a day,” said one London ambulance service (LAS) paramedic.

Eglantine says:

Even The Guardian says the deaths were from cardiac arrest and can only postulate “potentianally” related to Covid 19.

As you can see from the extracts I've posted, the Guardian is reporting what the A & E doctors were saying; not putting their own spin on it.

Eg also says:

It doesn’t say people are afraid to go to hospital or to burden the NHS. A journalist muses that this might be the reason.

No, the minutes of the meeting (see above) indicate that it is the A& E doctors who are thinking this.

I think I'll go with the A & E doctors' interpretation of the unusual figures they are dealing with rather than the apologists for the tory government. who don't appear to have read the article

I'm not sure where Pikachau is laying the blame or scorn. There's nothing to that effect in their OP. The article is presented for people to draw their own conclusions.

Perhaps some of you Gnet experts can explain what appears to these doctors to be unusually high numbers of deaths at home from heart attacks?

Perhaps some of you Gnet experts can explain what appears to these doctors to be unusually high numbers of deaths at home from heart attacks?

Not in anyway an expert but sheer common sense would suggest that isolation, stress, worry, inability to get out and about, a reluctance to call 999 because they have a misguided sense of not wanting to "burden" an already over worked NHS, not recognising how ill they really are until it's too late....all/any of these would be markers for someone with heart problems to have a heart attack don't you think *MaisieD"?

What we have Maizie is the Guardian journalists paraphrase of the Minutes of a meeting. I’d be content if the Guardian had actually published verbatim extracts from those Minutes so we could see what was actually said.

But we can see from Pikachus OP how easily things can be paraphrased or even like the ‘one or two deaths a week” actually deliberately misrepresented.

Emotive phrases are slipped in and quotes that don’t have to be attributed or verified. “said the head of one A and E department.”

It’s sloppyjournalusm seeking fir a story, that then gets rereported by people like Pikachu who doctor it again for there own ends. And before you know it, it’s a fact!

Show me the minutes, not a journalists article. Let’s see what was actually discussed by the people who know what’s going on.

You can’t? I wonder why.

You can? Hooray! Let’s have a proper informed discussion l

Gaunt47 It IS political ,it has been mishandled badly by the Tory government ,surely even their supporters can see that? Or do you have to lose a loved one before you'll see the truth!!

I trust that you don't believe anything written by any journalist at all then, Eglantine?

They’re primarily a commercial enterprise. The paper needs stories to sell so that’s what journalists write for.

I had a brief spell on the back desks of a newspaper when I lived in London. I know how it works.

Stories=sales= advertising revenue=profits.

Have you ever read The Shipping News. That passage about storm hits Newfoundland/storm misses Newfoundland is so true!

When journalists wrote criticism of Corbyn it was said on this
forum it was all lies

annie have you any idea how distasteful many of us will find your last post. Using CV to bang on again about Cotbyn - have you nothing of any relevance to post?

What has been concerning me in general is the importance of getting the message across that people should not worry about ‘bothering the doctor’. We had a thread recently where the OP didn’t realise GP surgeries were fully available for advice and consultations ( albeit in alternative ways). I think we could do with some clear public advice about using the GP and secondly what to do if you felt really ill ( even if not CV related).

What I find really odd about this thread is the rush to deny that deaths from Covid19 occur anywhere but in hospital...

Weird. I didn’t see that.

This is what’s known as a diversionary tactic,

If being proved wrong in what you said, go off at a tangent.

Surprising how often it works.

I learnt a lot in my spell with the media.

What I find really odd about this thread is the rush to deny that deaths from Covid19 occur anywhere but in hospital...

What? In what universe was that? I've gone back and read every single post but can't find one that supports you're ridiculous statement MaizieD. Diversionary tactics is the least of what's wrong on her claim Eglantine.

Obviously there’s a lot of people who think C 19 is overhyped and all these people were about to die anyway, even though there are 6,000 more so deaths a week than normal. Yes, there is some evidence that people are reluctant to go hospital either because they are scared of being isolated if they have the virus or that they are scared they will be exposed to the virus which would finish them off. Thus some excess deaths at home ( not all) can be explained.

I don't know whether other people on here have ever had a heart attack. I did and it was a complete shock. Although I'm diabetic and have slightly high blood pressure, I'm not overweight and don't smoke or drink alcohol.

I was walking along the road and suddenly felt breathless for no reason. I wasn't in pain, but felt like I'd never felt before. I sat down and thought for a while before ringing 999. I'm glad I did because I was in hospital within a few minutes and my life was saved.

I really was concerned about making a fuss and even when I was speaking to the emergency control person, I kept saying things like "I'm sure it's nothing really …". I think in the current climate, I would have been even more hesitant about ringing 999 and very probably would have died or been left with significant heart damage. I suspect some of the people who died at home were like me.

Absolutely so growstuff; I too have minimised a health scare by saying "oh, it's nothing, I'll just sit and rest a bit, it's nothing serious", before being rushed off to hospital by ambulance; as I'm sure we all have at one time or another. And now would make many of us even more hesitant to call the emergency services for exactly the reasons you mention.

Yup, even when I was blue-lighted in , I remember being puzzled that they sealed my clothes in a black plastic bag - because I was going to need them later on to go home in!

Happy days?

I still don’t get what Pikachus point was. Or the people who rushed to back her up?

In this worldwide grip of covid and its obvious call on NHS resources and a reluctance to be a burden, plus the fear of maybe catching it if admitted to hospital, it’s human nature to weigh up and react to what’s going on and possible consequences. Nobody is to blame. My husband hated ‘troubling the cardiologists’ and medical staff years ago when he first had heart trouble. It was a family joke that he’d rather have found to have a heart condition than found to be ‘wasting the doctor’s time’!

But there wasn't any 'point' in the OP. It was just drawing attention to an article in the Guardian. Which drew certain conclusions, ostensibly from the minute of the meeting they were reporting on.

There was an immediate flurry of denial that it could be right. In my book that says that the people who are denying it don't want it to be true. Why they don't want to believe it is a mystery to me, but there you go. Weird...

I have underlying medical conditions, I know when they are worsening and I know when to either call 999 or go to hospital by other means. Listen to your body!

I think it was the misreporting of the article by the OP that triggered the protests, along with the fact that it was only a bit of journalism, not the actual market notes of the meeting.

Which, incidentally, nobody has been able to produce.

I’d still be interested in them if you actually have them a true account of what was said.

Just seen on the BBC newsfeed …

"Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, stresses the “NHS is open for business”.
It is clear he is concerned people facing a medical emergency such as a heart attack, stroke or a flare-up of asthma are staying out of hospital during the crisis.
Visits to A&E have nearly halved since the outbreak began."

So it's not just a Guardian journalist who thinks people are staying at home rather than going to A and E.

Yes like journalists always publish the minutes of meetings that are leaked to them.?

Attendances at A and E are down. Deaths in the community are up. That’s fact.

It would have made an interesting topic for discussion but the OP muddied it by introducing her own fiction like “before there were only one or two a week now there are dozens” following fictional comments.

I did try to give her the truth on that (an average of 400 calls where the patient had no pulse) but she wasn’t interested in facts, just drama.

I find that approach very tedious. It f you have a valid point you don’t need to doctor it or big it up. If it’s valid it will stand on its own merits.