Day off today from work, think I needed it. So to reflect on a stressful working week:
Moved to ED at the start of the week to triage suspected corona patients for one day. Only had about 13 patients that came in but admitted none into hospital. Wasn't very busy in ED overall even though they had a few self isolating staff, quite clear people were staying away from the hospital. Needless to say, no tests were done. I suspect at least 1 I saw had it but we sent that person home. My PPE was a joke, only normal apron, gloves and face mask.
Went back to work in my usual area, acute medical on Tues and Wed. Total nightmare. Very short staffed, loads are isolating or being moved to the newly established corona areas. Very unsafe for patients and staff. My area is being treated as a dumping ground for all medical patients to free up ICU for covid-19 patients. All their step down patients are coming to my ward and essentially I have spent two days looking after some very ill patients. Two more HCA's phone in to tell us will be self isolating.
We are constantly being pressured to discharge the medically fit however, over the last couple of days we have found care/residential homes have been refusing to accept their residents back due to fear of covid-19. So essentially we had 48 hours of bed blocking. Thats how long it took managment, bed bureau and discharge team to sort out this mess and some are still refusing. We are having to give food packages to elderly patients being discharged home due to the stockpiling as well. Ambulance transport are short on staff as well so moving people out of hospital is becoming more difficult.
Going back to the dicussion about social isolation, until you have to care and look after those affected by isolation, you will never understand the detrimental complications, mentally, socially and medically it has to a persons' health. It pains me everytime I see an elderly patient come in (all the time), likely demetnia, cardiac failure, acute kidney injury etc etc etc. Most of all, no quality of life, family don't care because they are too busy. It's almost seems cruel to keep these people alive. And do you know what? That's probably 80% of the population of my patients. Some families absolutly disgust me, treating their so called loved ones as a burden and expect the NHS to pick up the flack. They also have the gall to complain about their care whilst they have probably done nothing for them since kicking them into care homes and visiting them once a week.
We have limited visitors to one 'key' individual per patient, its all over the hospital coridoors and ward areas yet families of 3-5 are coming up during visiting hours (also restricted). I've had two instances where they have argued with me on this and I have to explain it's to decrease the overall traffic of the hospital for infection control yet they think it's overly excessive and that the whole family has the right to visit their loved ones.
So essentially, front of house (ED and ICU) is rather quiet, they even had nice deliveries from fast food chains and had time to enjoy a snack. Whilst the wards are desperatly trying to find staff and keep patients safe. It's getting silly now. The NHS managment and governement have got no handle on this situation what so ever. I have colleauges crying in the staff room and others just wanting to quit altogether. T
Sorry for the wall of text, this is how I de-stress from work and not go insane. Rant over.