In a guest post, Dr Ann Bradshaw, a retired senior lecturer in adult nursing at Oxford Brookes, says the Government is still giving off mixed messages about how open and safe the NHS is. Could this be putting people off using it? Is this why there were still 800 excess deaths at home in the week ending March 12th, 30% above the five-year average, even though deaths overall were 4.4% below the five-year average?
First, in March after my Covid vaccination the NHS offered me a mammogram. I readily accepted the invitation. Then my GP surgery offered me a pneumococcal vaccination from a “limited supply”. I had never heard of it so looked it up on the NHS website. Oh, I saw it is offered to everyone age 65. I was never offered it before. Never mind, I thought. In these pandemic days I will take anything offered.
But, wait a minute. 40% of Covid is caught in hospitals I had read, and what about GP surgeries? I asked a doctor friend what to do. He advised to wait until my booster. But will I miss my chance if the supply is “limited”? Decisions, decisions.
I phoned the GP hoping for reassuring advice. The surgery is bound, I thought, to tell me all the social distancing measures in place to keep me safe. Perhaps I will be told to wait in a socially distanced queue outside and the nurse would meet me in the car park with the syringe for the jab? But no such advice. Instead, the receptionist said: “Oh don’t worry, we are not as full as we were before the pandemic.” But what of all the hacking coughers in the waiting room, I wondered? And anyway, hasn’t the Government told us for weeks: “Beware of the silent symptomless spreaders”. The Government’s constant warnings ring in my ears “stay home, protect the NHS, save lives”. “Don’t you know there is a lockdown on?” The lockdown is still on in March, so the Government must still be worried, and therefore so am I. “But if I postpone until after my booster”, I asked the surgery receptionist and surgery manager, “will I still get it?” “That depends on our limited supplies,” they replied. Decisions, decisions.
And what of the mammogram? Will I be socially distanced in the waiting room? Will the radiographer have clean hands? Will the equipment carry Covid specks? The Government warnings ring again, loudly in my ears. Hospitals are breeding grounds. How many secret Covid spreaders will I encounter? To put my mind at rest I Googled “mammogram” and “Covid”. Oh no – apparently, mammograms after Covid vaccinations can give false positives. So that’s out. Easy decision this time. Or is it? What if I have a hidden lump?
And don’t even mention the dentist. Other people’s mouths and the hygienist’s breath are bound to give me Covid.
Ah, you might say. But you have been vaccinated against Covid. Surely you are safe? And my answer is: have you not read the NHS website? You are not safe. The NHS message is that GPs and dentists and routine scans “are open”. The message is not that they are “safe” and my GP’s website confirms this. Even a jab does not make me safe. “You cannot go back to life as normal”, it says.
Making decisions means getting inside the mind of Government. On the one hand Government obviously believes I can’t be safe from Covid because all the restrictions remain – and there are no excuses for the vaccinated, whether jabbed once or jabbed twice. Restrictions are for everyone to keep us all safe, to protect the NHS and save our lives. Aren’t they? On the other hand, the Government says the NHS is open for routine business. But is this, I wonder in a moment of cynicism, just to save face – to avoid the criticism that people are not being treated for non-Covid illnesses? I am very confused. Am I safe for normal life and routine NHS treatment or not safe for normal life and routine NHS treatment?
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Initial observation. That waiting room looks nothing like those I have seen over the past 12 months.
These days the childrens playthings will have been removed and any dedicated playsafe space repurposed for social distancing.
The seating will all be facing the same way and alternately taped off for the same reason.
I had an appointment at my hated GP surgery last June. The receptionist, after she finally deigned to deal with me, as the self check-in machine was disabled (surface-contamination), reminded me I should pull my scarf up over the bottom half of my face (I had deliberately chosen one with a wide weave), my reply BUT THERE IS NO ONE HERE! was met with, you still have to do it!
I recently had a spate of GP appointments.
The nurses and doctors all wore the basic blue/white masks.
Only the receptionists & support staff wore the fancy ones that made them look like hungry puffins.
If it’s anything like it was last year, peak covid madness, when I visited hospital to be misdiagnosed (twice) in the country’s top awarded hospital in Cramlington Northumberland, it will be empty of people except for the faces of guilt staring down on you from the NHS covid propaganda posters.
The deserted GP surgeries are, of course, the partly the result of depopulation after all those years since the war that had worse viral outbreaks when we didn’t take sensible precautions like lockdown, mass testing and masking.
Maybe the sensible precautions that have now been taken have also helped to make people well, of course – so they don’t need a GP.
Please can we not have such bedwetting articles. It is the mindset of such people that encourages the environment that is now prevalent which endorses these inhumane measures, micromanagement, social distancing etc., on the assumption everyone wants to feel safe from every known bacteria or virus. I don’t need to have a micromanaged environment to feel safe, I can make my own assessment on who I physically need to be around and whether any service used meets expectations.
Thoroughly agree, I was shocked at the level of hysterical hypochondria. Get out and get on with life. Alternatively stay masked up in your bunker but for god let the rest of us dry-bedders get on with normal life.
And this brainwashed from a nursing lecturer – defies logic.
Agree, I read this and asked myself why they chose to publish it. So we can all have a good laugh how stupid this person is?
There was a similar article in UnHerd the last week. Whinge, whinge, whinge.
Maybe it’s not meant to be taken completely seriously, but from the view of what someone would think if they listened to and believed the government’s propaganda. The government’s message is contradictory, it’s safe, no it isn’t, but it’s safe, etc…
This article made me feel so sad for this woman and the rest of the bedwetters out there. Some of my colleagues are in this head space and their lives must be truly miserable. Sustaining such a level of alert for months leads to all sorts of illnesses.
However…a nurse who’s never heard of pneumococcus?!
Not just a nurse, a nurse lecturer, you’d think she’d be even more clued up!
I concluded that it’s more about the government’s mixed messages than what the writer really believes.
When I was a newspaper sub-editor, the rule was that asking a question in a headline always implied the answer was “no.” (doubt me? think of the difference between “Is the NHS now safe to use?” and “NHS now safe to use.”) As it is here. I mean, as one of the worst healthcare providers in Europe with chronically poor outcomes, it’s never “safe” to use the NHS. It’s just that Brits, by and large, don’t have enough experience of other healthcare systems to know they are playing Russian roulette every time they walk through a hospital door. Were I seriously sick, I would fly to my wife’s country Taiwan and get treated there. I remember having a heart operation on the NHS five years ago, seriously, Keystone Docs? You couldn’t make it up. Amazed I’m still here.
Some parts of the NHS is excellent, as was the Cardiothoracic Department that did MOH’s heart surgery.
Much of the rest of it is not. Some of it is dire.
Look at the figures earlier for the risk of catching this virus of concern – the whole lockdown has been for a risk no more than seasonal flu. I’m sure it’s the first time in your life that you have shivered in terror at home because of flu. So think about why all of this is going on if it’s really nothing and why our government want to keep us under house arrest for as long as they possibly can with massive complicity from all parties. Now you’ve got a reason to be scared and it’s not your health you should be worried about. Please wake up!
I feel I have to reply to this lady. I would recommend she seeks professional help from a psychologist. Also to stop with immediate effect listening to the government.
I speak from experience as I found a lump on my breast last year. I phoned my GP practice and was given an appointment to see a doctor. She wore a paper mask and wasn’t in the least concerned that I may be some disease ridden beast and vice versa. After all any time before coronovirus, all the doctors I’ve ever had exam me have washed their hands before and after any examination.
I was referred to hospital for a mammogram and a scan. I arrived at the hospital to be greeted by cheery staff and seen by a doctor, sent for a mammogram and then for a scan.
The radiologist was professional and reassuring as she explained that the lump would need a biopsy, which she asked if I was happy to have her do it immediately. The nurse held my hand throughout that procedure, there was no space suit equipment just those useless paper masks and my homemade handkerchief mask between us.
I had the lovely consultant phone me himself to tell me the lump was benign, however he would like to make sure by arranging an appointment for a MRI scan.
This appointment was in January when the positive testing of coronavirus was high and the hospital I attended had an outbreak, as one nurse mentioned to me ” the place is riddled with it, so many staff are off isolating”. I was left to walk corridors of this hospital and stop staff to ask for directions and if it hadn’t been for the masks, it looked like business as usual.
Finding this lump at the age of 60 was an imminent threat to me, I never concerned myself about catching covid as I had an extremely high chance of surviving that, however finding a lump on my breast was an immediate threat and could have resulted in months of painful treatment and or death.
The medical profession need to start looking at realities, if someone finds out too late that they have breast cancer or prostate cancer, the reality is they will very likely die, catching this virus that has sent sane people mad, the reality is most will survive.
I may suffer from anxiety caused by the government threats but more concerning is a doctor who is so anxious of catching a virus she’s likely to survive from than getting a mammogram for early diagnosis of something that can be treatable if caught early but is a death sentence if not diagnosed at all.
During the last 18 months I have probably worked in close to 150 practices. Most of them only have a handful of patients at any one time in the waiting room. Some of them don’t even have their doors open and you have to press a buzzer to speak to the receptionist. Masks are mandatory in the vast majority of surgeries. Almost everyone I have spoken to in these environments have not had Covid. Just two or three people told me that they had Covid, and that was in the early stages of the pandemic. I have never had any symptoms or been ill from Covid, neither have any of my colleagues. Patients are usually escorted in and escorted out. Doctors and Nurses wear full PPE which is replaced after each patient. GP practices seem to be very safe and controlled places, even at the expense of getting work done (I’m an Engineer, not a Dr).
Before Covid the waiting rooms were often full of patients but that isn’t the case now.
Nothing makes me suck my teeth and roll my eyes more than constant assurances of measures taken to ensure my safety. With attitudes like those of this woman it’s hardly surprising that the default assumption is that everyone is a cowering fool who laps up the fear propaganda.
Thank God I rarely need the doctor.
This lady would do well to look at the probabilities:
I am doubtful if this lady is a Medical Doctor. If so it is no wonder the country is inhabited by sheep.
I have read this lady’s previous articles, which have all been on the sceptical line. I think this one is meant more to highlight all the inconsistencies in the messaging.
For the already ‘scared out of their wits’ means they still won’t access the medical services & probably not for years to come.
For those that are ‘run of the mill’, then it highlights possibly genuine dilemmas of returning to ‘society’.
However, if I have misinterpreted this lady’s writing, then she is a very good example of why, as a society, we are frankly screwed!
Tongue in cheek, then?
We’re all doomed Captain Mainwaring we’re all doomed!