From the first few weeks of the pandemic, I have stopped watching the statistics early on as I think it was very much hyped in contrast to reality. Too much cases and deaths with not enough details from the media. Perhaps this was brought on to what we were seeing in our own hospital. As we kept on our emergency services, our admissions were less compared to before the pandemic. In saying that, we are not a general hospital where we cater to all medical admissions, including pediatrics and geriatrics. Nor we are surrounded with nursing homes.
Our first Covid patient was a walk-in, and as we are the nearest hospital even without an A&E, we were obliged to admit the patient and was put in isolation. Succeeding positive patients were then real heart attack patients who were tested, some with symptoms and some without.
Our hospital later on became one of the Covid hospitals around London,creating ITU bed extensions with most of the staff having upskills for ITU placements. We have both positive of CoVid and negative wards, the emergency services wards containing confirmed negatives.
Although running smoothly, certain protocols need to be adhered to with regards to the pandemic, an example is the protocol to follow in emergency situations. A patient requiring high oxygen flow needing adjuncts or worst, when arresting or coding,they can't be intubated in the wards.
According to the Public Health England(PHE), one way of transmitting the virus is through aerosol-generating procedures. This needs complete PPEs for all staff with patients in their own room or in isolation. This is not possible in areas where patients require constant monitoring, they will be in a bay with 5 or 7 other patients. A patient arresting here can't be intubated to protect other patients.
In a normal day, we intubate patients right there, then moved to ITU.
This is very concerning because there is a delay of treatment and sometimes this causes death.
With the renovation of ITU extensions for level 2 wards, access to appropriate treatment rooms are further. This also contributes to another delay when we need those extra minutes to save lives.
The number of deaths with such cause I have no idea. But even if there's only one, that patient didn't die due to the virus, BUT indirectly it have.
There are frontline testimonies of delayed treatments that were found to be negative of Covid. There are also videos coming out from nurses who claim to have seen negligence in patients' management's.
When this pandemic is over, the number of mortality worldwide can be massive for sure. If you look at the present world's statistics, on what percentage did people actually die of complications from the virus? What percentage will it show the result of delayed management or mismanagement from hospital staff?
Will we ever know? Are the mortality rates being hyped too? For what purpose?