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You've not been around for a week. Everything ok?
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Aye everything's fine, been nosing daily but probably not signed in so the page wasn't noting me.
Work has been pretty manageable since the lockdown, and I do some weekend morning shifts in the "Assessment Hubs" which have been set up to see patients who need seen and who may have Covid (but don't necessarily need a 'straight to hospital' disposal).
Actually on annual leave this week, was meant to be in Japan with the missus and the weans.
The same holiday we had to cancel last summer after she was diagnosed with leukaemia!
First world irony, I guess.
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>>The same holiday we had to cancel last summer after she was diagnosed with leukaemia!
How are you shielding? My SWMBO's in the extremely vulnerable group and I haven't been out for weeks.
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>>How are you shielding?
A tad imperfectly.
She did get her letter from the govt, although her blood counts are much better than at Xmas.
I still go to work with limited patient contact - in the day job every appointment is on the telephone initially. In the past I never liked the thought of "phone triage" but I am surprised that 80-90% of stuff doesn't need a face-to-face approach.
Even a 6mth old baby with 4-day fever and a rash: in the past I would have said "bring 'em straight down" but I diagnosed roseola over the phone from the parent's story and texted them a link to the illness on the NHS website.
I may see one patient on an out-of-hours assessment shift though my role is "senior clinical decision maker" so I usually give guidance to the nurse practitioners. If I do see a patient, or have to do a house call in the day job (have done 1 in 3 weeks) I have gloves, apron, mask/visor.
10 minutes wearing limited gear has me overheating: the guys doing 10 hour shifts in ICU in the full bhuna PPE must be going commando under the layers!
On return from work/shops I shower/wash hands.
Not perfect but I guess it's a bit like being a soldier or prison officer: putting yourself in harm's way is part of what you signed up for, though you mitigate the risk as much as you can.
The stress of the current crisis is offset by the reduced demand of day-to-day throughput and target chasing.
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I was born in 1946, missed national service, so like most people, I haven't had to put my life on the line. I hope that, if tested, I could do it for the right reasons. Thank you, and all your colleagues, (and other members on here, and their loved ones) for showing us how it's done.
Neil
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Missus is a nurse in a hospice here in Scotland. Very strange times.
There have been instances of Covid meaning that she needs to have all the PPE on and we have a well rehearsed procedure for when she comes home to get her from the car to the shower!
Interestingly this virus has had a knock on to their "everyday" patients - they simply aren't going through the system anymore. Very few referrals from the hospitals for end of life care. Seems a lot of folk are scared of moving, either from the hospital or from their home.
Hospices have always been about holistic care, families can stay over, 24 hour visiting, therapies, counselling etc etc all available. But many are now having to adopt hospital type processes, one nominated visitor, restricted visiting time, most other services snowballed.
Can fully understand why folk want to stay at home with their families around them.
Friend's mum who lived at home but had dementia, COPD and various other illnesses showed signs of Covid. Paramedics arrived and basically said choice was they take her away to hospital and family will receieve updates by phone, or stay at home with family around her. They chose the latter and she dies 36 hours later with her family there.
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Mrs Z has now completed all her paperwork, collected her Uniform and will be doing her first recall to the NHS shift next week.
So I guess we will have to have some process in place to decontaminate. She's not had her PPE training yet, and keen to avoid Covid wards, but apparently they re littered all over the hospital - positive that is, but asymptotic.
Ironically she will be probably be on the surgical wards, where she spent a fair few hours at my bedside in the last 14 months.
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Zero, I admire your missus for doing that. It is the natural instinct of the caring nurse. I asked my missus to promise me that if she didnt get PPE she would refuse to work and she said I can't do that. I can't leave a patient lying there and not assist. Even though she knows there would be associated risks. Its in their make up.
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"Zero, I admire your missus for doing that."
Me too. I'll give her the clap on Thursday evening.
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BBD....you're a very naughty boy !
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...well, he's certainly not the Messiah.....
:-)
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>> I'll give her the clap on Thursday evening.
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...the result of not having access to PPE.......?
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>>So I guess we will have to have some process in place to decontaminate.
good luck with this - it is actually quite a challenge if you try to do it all 100%! Don't forget her car keys!
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It's also near impossible to do any kind of social distancing with your colleges when not being face-to-face with patients, the several different levels of PPE are only worn when providing patient care so all of the other times, coffee room, lunchtime or going between departments means you can't help but to come into close contact with other staff in the hospital environment.
It will be interesting to see if the instructions on PPE have changed over the weekend since the recent frenzied talk over PPE reuse (updates had calmed down for a while so we knew where we were), thing is what does come across on the news is that we have 'single use' and 'single patient use' which are different plus I would say that nearly 100% of all surgical gowns are made of water-resistant paper so not sure how it's possible to clean and resterilised them (I think this is done with Ethylene Oxide gas).
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End of life care is taking place at home in this area. My former NHS colleagues are delivering the required drugs straight to the patients' home addresses...
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Lygonos??? - Lygonos
