For those of you who work in hospitals in any capacity, what exactly has the situation been in your hospital over the course of this so-called pandemic? Were you overwhelmed, at any point? Almost overwhelmed? Not even close?
I ask this because I visited a hospital today and it was like a ghost town save for seemingly hundreds of doctors and nurses littered around corridors and empty rooms with nothing to do. I've heard others report the same but perhaps we've just been lucky in this area.
Anecdotally my sister, an A & E consultant, finds it quiet though I am sure the drunks will soon be in for Saturday night. Judging by the Tiktok dancing nurses videos that cropped up mid pandemic I guess we did 'save the NHS' if not the care homes or the non Covid part of things.
My sons partner is a nurse most of her friends are nurses. None of them have been overwhelmed, there is no shortage of beds the hospitals have been empty. There never was a pandemic
I live with a cardiac nurse: she's described the last 4 months as the easiest of her 20 year career as people have been too scared to seek medical assistance and certain procedures were cancelled. She didn't follow any of the lockdown rules at all. None of them. But continued to socialise across three different counties during the lockdown often with other nurses, often not. She is quite embarrassed by the clapping.
She describes patients already in the hospital for other reasons testing positive for coronavirus (they test every patient regardless of symptoms) and then being shipped off to the covid ward, then being tested again and then coming back because the next test was negative, then testing positive then negative - you get the picture. The tests are utterly unreliable and the vast majority of positive tested patients had no symptoms at all. A couple of her colleagues became ill and fully recovered. A couple of Filipino nurses suddenly disappeared and they were told they had died of covid (I suspect they were sent home to the Philippines as nobody saw them become ill, and no funerals were held).
Those patients that were ill with Covid19 (or whatever this year's flu is) deteriorated very rapidly once the infection got into their lungs, some dying within three days. All of them had compromised immune systems and pre-existing illnesses, most of them were elderly. The overwhelming majority recovered with only extra oxygen as treatment. None of them were tested for influenza.
Her hospital covers around half a million people - they peaked at 62 covid patients in April - all of whom were already sick with other illnesses. They currently have 3 on the covid ward. They don't put them on ventilators any more.
So, in summary - the nurses aren't scared, most of the wards are under capacity, they have no faith in the tests, and they've realised that putting people on ventilators does more harm than good.
Love and light to you all.