The plague, again

My son has contracted COVID again for the third time, bringing it into the house for the second time. One of his friends on his school trip came down with COVID but that was a while ago so he must have escaped that and instead, got it off someone else.  I have noticed that with this latest variant, people have symptoms for a few days before testing positive. He is now in his room with unlimited access to Netflix on the iPad of my wife and is in isolation again. 

My daughter is not 100%, and my wife herself is on the mend from a cold herself. Other that a minor sore throat, I am fine in myself and have had a nap so that I have the energy for the Christmas Party at work. With no symptoms, I am ready to go! 

NHS football comparisons

Another manic day. I was not on call, but helped out a bit, and am still behind on paperwork from my days when I was on call.  While catching up on paperwork, I did get to watch the Holland equaliser against Argentina and the penalty shootout. 

Before this surge in workload due to Scarlet Fever, working in the NHS could be summed up as playing for England against France with eight players and no subs. Now we are playing against both France and Argentina at the same time. I am lucky to work with a great team, and while we don’t have eight players, I would say we have ten. But there are no subs on the bench. Now with Scarlet Fever, the numbers needing to be seen have doubled.

My MP claims that the NHS is to get better, but it has got worse while the Conservatives in charge, and the reasons are simple, it is not funded properly. 

A paramedic who works with us cannot remember a time before 2010 when he had to wait outside A&E to hand over a patient, something that is far too common how. I have had a patient wait hours with a fractured hip before he was taken to A&E, a patient with a possible heart attack giving up and coming to see me the next day due to symptoms. None of this happened between 1997 and 2010 when Labour was in charge of the NHS. 

What a day.

Tuesday and Thursday were nightmare days at work. At least today was not as bad as Tuesday, but on Tuesday, we had antibiotics to treat Strep A. The government have said that there is no shortage of antibiotics, and technically they are right. But there is a shortage of the correct forms of antibiotics needed to treat this. On Tuesday I dealt with one parent who was not able to get penicillin in liquid form. Today, as there is a shortage of amoxicillin which was existed before this public health crisis, I have had to prescribe capsules which had to be broken up so that children could get the treatment they need. The erythromycin liquid that I prescribed on Tuesday was hard to find today as is liquid penicillin.  We do have these antibiotics in other forms (tablets and intravenous forms) so when Conservative politicians say that there is no shortage of antibiotics, they are right. But tell that to a parent who cannot find the liquid forms of antibiotics that their child needs.

PMQs and PPE (again)

I watched PMQs with my daughter after it had taken place due to work commitments. She was at home as she had an inset day. After Starmer lost the first questions on housing, the issue of PPE came up.  Again, I admire the actions of the Conservatives when it came to Nightingale hospitals (though staffing would have been an issue) as well as changes in the law to allow doctors to certify deaths without risking death.  

But PPE was a big issue, not just the lack of it despite the findings of Exercise Alice and Exercise Cygnus, but how our nation exported PPE even though we had a huge shortage because those who raised how we could supply our frontline workers were not part of the Chumocracy.  Even then, the PPE sourced by those friends of the Conservatives was not up to our standards!

Matt Hancock has appeared to blame frontline workers for bringing COVID into nursing homes, but this would have been less likely to happen if we had decent testing and also PPE. 

I used to be in a toxic environment. I left it.

Harry and Meghan are in the news again. It is interesting to see aspects of the media who drove them out of the UK continue to berate them.  

In 2010, I left a toxic environment to work where I am now, and while I know they wish I could be better, I do know that they appreciate me.  The sense of liberation I felt when I left was amazing.  I wish the media companies who drove this couple away took a good look at themselves and think on what they did, and how it looks to people affected by racism.

Those of colour of the age of Meghan Markle and those older will all have been treated differently than those who are white in the UK. They know why some papers show double standards. 

Are nurses in Scotland valued more than those in England

Nurses and in Scotland are to be offered pay terms more than those in England are being offered and this is significantly less than what the RCN has asked for. Does this mean that SNP politicians in Scotland value nurses more than Conservative politicians in England? 

Remember that this is not just nurses, but other workers in healthcare as well.  While people clapped for the staff that worked to save lives during the worst of the COVID pandemic, Conservative politicians seem to think that claps and a pay rise way below inflation is what they need.  

Fury

My daughter is back from Belfast having visited the Titanic museum and the murals. My wife is watching Van Morrison. I picked my daughter and a family friend from Stansted but had to listen to the victory of England over the African champions. My son and I bonded earlier in the day over Grey’s Anatomy while I was catching up on paperwork. Before that I had been to Highwoods Park with Leia, a walk that she loved.

I also watched Fury. What a great, but bleak and miserable film it is.  On the plus point, it was more cheerful than All Quiet On The Western Front, but then many American films are.  If you are interested in war films, this is a must to watch and I will probably watch this again sometime in the future. However there is no point in watching it if you do not enjoy war films. As a film to portray some of the horrors of what war was like during the invasion of Germany, this is worthy.