Wishing you and your wife all the best. The conditions are horrendous and I'm really sorry she has had to suffer with it.
Thank you that is appreciated, I respect your differences of opinion but it’s a bit of a touchy subject as you can imagine.
Apologies. You are righ- time and place and all that. Please keep us up to date with how she's doing.
Just as bad, the people who are prepared to work in care homes went back to their home countries and no more people are arriving who will work in them, due to a certain vote that was held a few years ago. I’d wager that over 99% of Brexit voters wouldn’t be prepared to do that job (or many others that were done by European immigrants). This is the major issue for people not being able to get an ambulance, due to the knock on effect of not being able to discharge elderly and vulnerable people who no longer need to be in a hospital bed. So Brexit is playing a major part in bed blocking, operations being cancelled, patients waiting in A&E for up to 4 days waiting for a bed on the ward, lengthy waiting times in A&E, ambulances being unable to offload patients when they get to A&E and people dying because they are unable to get an ambulance. I think I mentioned on here before, but within the past couple of months 2 good mates of mine had to get a tube (after having a heart attack) and an Uber (whilst having a brain haemorrhage) to A&E. The guy having the heart attack has been working in that A&E since 1995, when I also worked there. Strangely though, no politician is prepared to mention Brexit as one of the reasons for the issues. It’s as if Labour are too scared of losing votes by being honest with us. Reintroducing freedom of movement would allow the care homes to recruit the staff they need, as well as allowing the hospitals to replace a large chunk of the staff it also needs. This would pretty quickly solve a lot of problems we are currently having. All these people would be paying tax too, although some of the care home workers’ wages may be too low to hit tax thresholds. It’s time Mr. Starmer grew some balls and explained some hard facts to people and gave us a choice. Do we want to rescue the NHS or not? Cos there’s a very easy way that would help solve staffing issues and bring a lot more money into the country too, as well as solving the Irish border issue, and it needn’t entail us rejoining the EU (even though it would be ridiculous to adopt a lot of their rules and not have a say in how the rules are determined, but hey ho, we lost, get over it!).
How much does it cost, per person, to run a care home? How much do they charge, local authorities, and, others, per person?
Gordon I think you will find that the SNP are forever letting people know that lots of our problems stem from Brexit and lack of foreign workers.
Not necessarily. The pensioners today didn't have enough kids (and they didn't too) to support them, so the ratio of *tax-payers* to the population is falling - currently around 50% with 20+% retired and 20% as kids. The other 10% are long-term sick, students, maternity leave, unemployed, disabled, etc. The number of pensioners will increase for the next 10-20 years, with the number of workers staying the same... The demographics timebomb - and the main reason we need lots of immigration.
Used to be the mars bar test didn't it!? Not sure what a mars bar costs nowadays on its own, I only buy multipacks!
We knew back in the 50s and 60s with the baby boomers that this situation would arrive. Unfortunately successive governments obviously chose to not address the problem and now we have what we have.
Best wishes to your wife Mido. My father was admitted to BDGH before Christmas by ambulence for pneumonia and I have to say our experience was completely different. It did take a while for him to be placed on the AMU ward but the process through A&E was (although a little slow) was nothing short of brilliant thanks to outstanding support from the nurses, porters (if that is still the right term) and doctors - absolute heros. These people deserve help and support.
One of our neighbours died yesterday in a and e. Went into hospital not feeling well. He was in the waiting area 9 hours. Had a heart attack in waiting area and died in resus.
Pinderfields is a bit of nightmare A&E wise I’ve been there a few times this year , they just don’t seem to have any staff . Leeds Infirmary A&E, the wait might be as long but they are doing observations from the moment you go in and keep you informed as to length of wait and what’s happening to you
Mate's Dad was in a bed over 24 hours in A&E waiting for a bed in the Acute Ward from Thursday. When they got him in there, there were several vacant beds on the ward and also 6 bay bedrooms all shut up and the lights off - ward running at about 40% of maximum physical capacity because they didn't have the staff but to maximise the space capacity. Seems like it's nearly always a labour constraint of patient facing staff that's the issue. (This is Wythenshawe hospital)
My Dad was sent home from Pinderfields with a leg ulcer because they couldn't get him into the correct ward and it was high risk keeping him on the Acute assessment ward. He's been seen by district nurses regularly at home and now is fit enough to attend the clinic at the Health Centre. It did seem strange though when I was visiting him seeing all those bays with empty beds with lights out and chairs barricading them off.
Listened to a podcast the other day and they were explaining that a 'free bed' doesn't just mean a bed that's empty. You've got to have the equipment and the staffing to go with it too. Quite a simple and obvious point really but an important one. It's a bit like the Nightingale hospitals, they were a waste of time because there was no staff to service them.
Yeah I was surprised that all these hospitals were planned during the height of pandemic in spite of them knowing they couldn't man them. I just assumed they'd find the staff.
You are right , the Government keep saying they need to invest in front line services , nurses and doctors are the frontline
