Hospital staff snub Prime Minister

I take medication for high BP, but haven't had a routine review. I'm aware they have the potential for kidney damage, as has diabetes, which is why it's actually important that I do have blood tests. I take my own BP a number of times a day and decided I wasn't going to take BP medication until I had the blood tests. My GP grudgingly agreed with me. I do what I can to help myself by eating no red meat and very little animal fat. So far, my BP hasn't risen above normal.

The message that is repeatedly churned out at media briefings in recent weeks about intensive care units still having empty beds throughout the crisis is a distortion of facts.

Major hospitals worked frantically at the start to set up additional ICU areas.

Non urgent surgery was cancelled and theatres and recovery areas were converted into ICUs. In some hospitals entire wards were converted to ICUs.

There were extraordinary measures taken to accommodate the influx of gravely ill patients who required ventilation in ICU.

All these extra ICU beds are included in the total when the figures are read out to state there are still empty beds. I’ve yet to hear that point mentioned.

I was talking to a nurse yesterday and she said her hospital which is a main hospital is practically empty. She said she’s sitting around waiting for a patient to come in and getting paid for this. Their cleaning door handles etc to keep busy so if Boris needs to restart the economy he should start getting patients back for appointments.

* There's an article in today's Guardian claiming that between 10-20% of Covid-19 cases in hospital were acquired in hospital,*

I've been wondering about that for quite a while now.

I've family working in hospitals who have mentioned this. Also, the 2 people that we know that have died, were both in hospital with different ailments when they contracted the virus .

One chap in his 50s had been fit and healthy and had gone in for a knee operation

I’ve often wondered about this also oopsminty.I do think in Later months the problem will be more severe about people dying due to not getting the relevant appointments in hospital when they needed them some may be routine but some more serious and like they say cancer doesn’t wait around for anyone. Such a sad situation.

I echo callistemon's post.

He has so much other stuff going on too growstuff it’s as though he has fallen through the cracks and is being ignored. I’m battling so many things right now and don’t feel like I should be battling for my DH’s life as well .

If anyone called Obama an orang-utan, it would be termed racist but it's seems it's okay to call Mr Trump one. That's disgraceful.

My DS remains convinced that my DH had CV at the end of last year. We never ever got a proper diagnosis for the unknown virus he had. Double pneumonia , sepsis and symptoms mimicking legionella. He is incredibly lucky to be alive .

I agree quizqueen . I though the same when the mayor of London allowed then to fly that awful blimp . Imagine if it had been Obama, the queen or anyone else ?

Shocking really .

Alexa
I myself with my old fashioned knowledge of infection control could have handled the care home fiasco better than the the present government.

I think one of the problems with care homes is that they are not local authority run - around 84% are owned by faceless millionaires, for-profit companies and venture capitalists. They left their dedicated staff without adequate protection and then, of course, it is easy to blame the government rather than themselves and their lack of care for their employees and residents.

True Calli and they only pay a minimum wage. Greedy beggars.

Presumably your OH is an adult, is capable of living as healthily as he can and can pick up a phone to try to speak to a doctor.

He has conditions which make him vulnerable to being badly affected, so presumably he's completely self-isolating. The last place I want to go at the moment is anywhere near a hospital with Covid-19 patients.

No idea where that hospital is Harris27, but it's not what staff working at the three hospitals near to me are saying. Some wards are empty because they have no staff for them. There was already a shortage of staff, some are self-isolating because they have symptoms or underlying health conditions and others have been redeployed.

gillybob Remember the shortage of 20,000 nurses etc? One reason why the Nightingale Hospitals weren't fully used (if at all)

I suspect that the Nightingales were installed because it was quick and easy to do and it showed the the govt were doing something successfully. About the only thing and what a waste of money.

For heaven's sake you lot (at least the ones who are complaining about the NHS) The consultants are often working from home doing skype consultations. The rest are working in the hospitals looking after those with covid 19.

Have you seen the photos of the staff, ranging from nurses to consultants who have died whilst looking after the rest of themselves.

Some of you should be feeling ashamed of yourselves.

Do you not understand? The thread is about Belgium.

I had a lovely phone chat with my new consultant the other day. He isn't working from home but out of a different hospital which is very inconvenient but safer for him, the staff and those patients who have to attend in person for treatment.

The first sentence was to Dinahmo
People's experiences of the NHS are often different.

Not much mention about Belgium on here. Perhaps the title should be changed.

I've been thinking about the care home situation. Obviously they are full of the sort of frail elderly people most at risk. Decisions were made by responsible clinicians to discharge patients back to them without checking first whether or not they were carrying the infection back to this at risk group. In NHS the RMO is key (responsible medical officer). Surely they have some responsibility here? I know we're all supposed to venerate our wonderful medics but bad decisions were made and they weren't all down to Westminster.
Puts on tin hat and retires.

I was not going to get involved in this as I do not post on anything political.
The protest was just that, politics, at the moment we do not have a government, again. She is an interim PM and not too popular.
You would need to study the Political system here to understand.
The reason for the high posted death rates is that Belgium has been counting all deaths, in care homes, peoples own homes Hospitals and the huge Convalescent homes we have here.
Any death from suspected Covid 19 has also been counted.
It is expected the numbers will go down when autopsies are completed.
There are a lot of Hospitals in Brussels and St Pierre being in the city centre has been used as the main Hospital for Covid 19 for Brussels.
The main testing centres are at St Elizabeth and St Michel.
If you have symptoms you call your GP and then make an appointment to go for a test, same day, results in 48 hours.
I noticed the thread became quickly about the NHS and Boris, as I said in a previous post I am not sure what this has to do with Belgium.
Our health services are very very different so is our political system.

Why should the title be changed?

Pantglas started the thread with a link to Belgium.

Yes, Jane10 Symptomless does not mean that the virus is not present. Obviously it was thought that sending elderly people back to their care homes would be safer for them than in hospital, but the RMO had a duty of care to ensure that they were not carrying the virus back with them.

The home owners failed in their duty of care to both staff and residents.

X post felice, mine was not in response to yours.

A post from someone who knows and has brought some local knowledge and common sense to the thread.

What is worrying me is, if the only way that the NHS has been able to cope with this first wave of covid infections has been to severely limit other resources, what is going to happen when we get, as now appears to be likely, an inevitable second wave?

Is the government planning to increase capacity to cope with that as well as returning all other services more back to 'normal'? I don't know at all what the position is on this, but I don't have a lot of confidence in the future.

We know that the NHS went into this first wave seriously understaffed and under resourced. We knew this before Covid even happened because NHS bodies had been warning of their unpreparedness to cope with even a 'normal' winter flu episode this winter.

It may be that, on balance, we'll be OK. We are not necessarily doomed to a second wave of infections. It may be OK to reopen schools carefully. It may be OK to resume other NHS services but we'll never know unless we make a careful start. The country cannot remain in hiding indefinitely.