Protect the NHS

Happy New Year to everyone.

2020 was hard year with the pandemic but it not over yet. It more important now more than ever to protect our NHS during wave 2. The government in the UK has been slow on the up take, always seeming to be one step behind or plain ignore the advice from SAGE. The NHS is overwhelmed!

Winter is always difficult. We busy and full with flu or other winter virus that can make our vulnerable and elderly population extremely sick. This year on top of these normal winter pressures we have covid. I would in ED in London as a nurse we stretched, we understaffed and overwhelmed by the amount of people.

Part of this is due to space. As per government guidance we are social distancing patients as best of possible in all areas as we won’t know who A-symptomatic with covid and who covid free and if possible would like to prevent people without covid getting it. What does this mean to the public? Your probably use to scene of patient lining the corridors of emergency departments up and down the country, double park and all, waiting rooms with more people than chairs. At present we are not allowed to do any of this, in waiting room patient need at least 2 chairs between them, no patient in corridor unless we are completely stuck. The other issue to do with space most emergency departments are dealing with is where to put our covid area and where to put the non-covid area and how to split this space. In the first wave when we went into lock especially most non-covid patient stopped come to ED so we could use our main department for covid and response ward space (normal just the one) for non-covid patients, this wave people are not staying away, meaning people that could wait for GPs or go to walk in are still attending emergency departments. People are still going out which can lead to accidents. I work in ED for 2 years now, this is the busiest I seen it, some of my colleagues who have been ED nurse for 4-10 years have also never seen the department like this.

We are seeing what covid does to all age range of patient. Someone said to me that it only elderly and vulnerable people who are getting really sick with covid, this is not true. Listen to me now I had lots of normally fit and well 30 to 50 year old who now need oxygen, it not just about protecting the elderly or vulnerable, anyone can get really sick and need ICU from it. We still don’t understand why this happens to some and not others.

A lot of my colleagues are breaking point, we anxious and stressed, worried about take covid home to family, stressed due to being understaffed and knowing that most of our shift at present will be awful for one reason or another. Mental health charities are reporting larger number of health care worker using hotline and helpline as they as overwhelmed with work. The NHS is at breaking point, we have no space left in the hospital and staff are burning out, if we not careful we will lose one of the best things about the UK and it won’t be because the Tories took it apart.

Now to you. How can the general public protect the NHS? Follow guidance from the government. STAY AT HOME! Simple! Don’t meet another household on a walk and if you do social distance. If you can work from home do.  Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay away from others. Do not break the rules because it a special occasion, (we expecting a spike in case from Christmas and new year over the next 2 weeks), we know you miss your families so do we. If we went by the rules and the government forced isolation when come to the country, we could be sitting pretty like New Zealand right about now but we not.

My only other piece of advice is to get vaccinated. You can not get the virus from any vaccination in the first place, the covid vaccinate the American one is not even the virus its protein instruction and the oxford one is a dead virus. It is safe! No, it’s not got a tracker in it, your not that interesting to be tracked also your phone works much better as a tracker than anything they could put in the vaccinate. Lastly if you want the world to return to any kind of previous normal, we need to control the virus and a vaccinate is the best way for that.

If we don’t do these simple things we won’t have an NHS left to help look after once the pandemic is behind us. Please protect your love one by following the rules. Please protect our beloved NHS by following the rules and only going to the hospital if it is an emerngcy.

Protect the NHS. Stay home. Wear a Mask. Wash your hands. Social distance. Get vaccinated! I will be.