Covid: NHS in crisis mode as hospitals told to discharge patients where possible

[brooklynite]

Source: The Guardian

The NHS was put on a crisis footing tonight as hospitals in England were told to discharge as many patients as possible while estimated daily Omicron cases hit 200,000 and the variant claimed its first life in the UK.

Amid a scramble for tests and booster jabs, the country’s doctors called for further restrictions to be imposed to stem the rise in cases and Downing Street did not rule out fresh measures.

In a letter to hospitals, NHS England chiefs said patients who could be discharged to care homes, hospices, their own homes or hotels before Christmas to free up beds, should be. The letter from NHS England’s chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, and medical director Prof Stephen Powis said the service was facing a level 4 “national incident”.

Hotels are already being turned into temporary care facilities staffed with workers flown in from Spain and Greece to relieve rising pressure on NHS hospital beds.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/13/covid-nhs-in-crisis-mode-as-hospitals-told-to-discharge-patients-where-possible

[OneCrazyDiamond]

1. First detected 32 days ago.

[yaesu]

2. "people needed to "set aside" the idea that the variant was mild."

I'm not setting aside anything until I see more data, proof of how this variant is different from D, what are the prominent symptoms, what is the hospitalization rate, ect... What we do know is that it seems to be more contagious & probably will be the dominate strain. I'm still holding out hope for it being considerably less Lethal.

[JohnSJ]

3. and that is exactly what Fauci and every other reputable medical authority has been saying

[not fooled]

4. Nightmare scenario

recombination between Delta and Omicron to produce a new strain with the worst features of each. Caveat: I haven't compared the protein sequences and structures of each to get an idea of how likely such recombination might be (but for sure scientists working on COVID are doing so).

[Wingus Dingus]

7. Yep--need to rack up some real numbers of hospitalizations and deaths

due to omicron before I become as concerned about it as I had been for the delta variant.

[tanyev]

5. Yikes. Seems like every time it got bad in Europe, we got there too a few weeks later.

[LisaL]

6. We are about 4 weeks behind UK.

So it's a good guess omicron is going to overthrow delta in about 4 weeks in US.

[NullTuples]

8. Q: Are they still infectious?

If so, wouldn't sending them home create a massively parallel super-spreader event?

[wnylib]

9. I think the people being sent home are

the ones there for other reasons. They want to cut back on hospital recovery times where possible, in order to be ready for an influx of omicron patients.

Probably best for the patients being sent home, too. If you were in a hospiral for tests or for a few days for a sleep apnea diagnosis, wouldn't you rather go home than be exposed to covid patients being brought in with a very contagious variant?

NY hospitals are not doing elective surgeries now in order to keep space open for more covid patients.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. This is about discharging non-covid cases

to make room for more covid, and more covid-possible, cases. One of the problems hospitals are having is that all patients, whatever the main thing they're in for, have to be divided into known-covid-positive, known-covid-negative, and awaiting-test-results groups, to avoid them infecting each other. This takes up more room, and is one of the things causing delays in A&E (ie 'ER') admissions and work.

They'd also normally be discharging as many patients as possible before Christmas, so the staffing levels can be as low as practical. This could be doing it all a few days earlier.

[IronLionZion]

11. "workers flown in from Spain and Greece"

How's BREXIT working out for jolly old England? Can't find enough UK citizens apparently. If only the US could find some extra workers during the so-called "labor shortage".

Seriously, we could use some sort of temporary visa worker system for the undocumented immigrants already here and the folks south of our border who would like to do it legally. And then a pathway to permanent residency and then citizenship.

And then there's health care workers. Workers are the real shortage. They could put up military field hospitals, yes even in cold weather, but they don't have enough health care workers.