With this wave, it's not so much the pressures on the ITU's at the moment, although this can change at any time as they are under enormous pressure anyway at this time of year, without the addition of any further covid patients, and there are a number of younger unvaccinated patients needing ventilation which could increase and tip them over. It's the effects of covid taking out so many of the workforce of an already overstretched NHS
My wife came home from hospital totally physically and mentally exhausted having had a terrible time today, two cardiac arrests another horrendous day, I seem to have been hearing this phrase a lot during past few years. Patient after patient, massively understaffed trying to make it work despite the shortfalls, the lack of resources, despite the ones burnt out, who've given up. Knowing there are patients to be seen, the responsibility you have, trying to be safe to keep it working. She's back in early tomorrow and I won't see her till ten at night tomorrow.
She goes back worried that the pressures they're working under will result in mistakes that could potentially kill a patient, She finds it hard to turn off, that's not unusual where she works, I socialise with a lot of them, the signs are obvious. They went through hell last January, and they've been really stretched since, it's their day to day reality, they try to look after each others mental health but it's hard. They're making real life and death decisions everyday, all day, under enormous pressure, get them wrong, miss something and it's them at fault. It's no use to her for me to tell her, it's the pressure she's working under, she cares and is doing a great job. Because it's no let off or get out of jail free card to her, because the patients she's seeing are real people, grannies and grandads, mums, dads, daughters, sons. You can't get it nearly right, the decisions you make can result in massive effects on the patients lives, their families lives. It's not like you can console yourself, I got three tumours and only missed one, or I prevented the majority of the potential cardiac arrests but missed a few signs, it's a good average overall, and we were really busy and understaffed, it just doesn't work like that in their game, any mistakes the patient suffers and they take it home with them.
It's not covid directly atm but the winter problems caused by chronic underfunding of the last ten years really coming home to roost. The winter pressures have been extending far more than winter for the last few years to the point it's just accepted that really sick patients wait hours on the corridors unattended, that crisis measures become the normal way of operating, that everyone is permanently on a war footing in the busy areas but the big problem that makes the hospitals in big cities resemble a war zone is that covid is taking out so many staff in already understaffed areas, that have been giving everything for the past few years keeping it together making it work and the staff in busy areas feel at breaking point before these pressures, so take out a percentage of the workforce because of covid and the danger is it falls apart. That is the reality of the pressures on the NHS at the moment due to covid it's going to be another horrible January which will result in an already exhausted workforce having to face unbelievable pressures after having no let up since the last crisis
