Has Boris
Johnson, who must have understood that Brexit will produce great hardship for
the population, decided to kill off the frail and the poor?
Johnson’s administration has produced 44,500 Corona
dead. Five times as many as Germany (the per capita figure is even higher at
6.2) and they still haven’t gotten their act together.
Yesterday, in the supermarket, I was amazed to be the only person wearing a mask. The UK made wearing masks compulsory in public transport as late as 15 June and it still is not compulsory to wear masks in shops. A couple of hours ago, Downing Street has announced that it is “considering mandatory face masks in shops in England”. What morons.
Yesterday, in the supermarket, I was amazed to be the only person wearing a mask. The UK made wearing masks compulsory in public transport as late as 15 June and it still is not compulsory to wear masks in shops. A couple of hours ago, Downing Street has announced that it is “considering mandatory face masks in shops in England”. What morons.
And if
you are unwell in England – tough luck. Seeing one’s GP is almost impossible.
Unlike Germany, where you can, if necessary, walk-in to see a GP (with masks and
keeping distance etc.) – here you must ring the GP practice, convince the
receptionist that you need to talk to a doctor. A few hours later a doctor will
ring you back, discuss the matter with you, ask you to send a photo of the
problem, upon which you are told what ointment you might take.
Sad.
There has been a new set up for the last 5 months in GP land. And I find given the circumstances it has worked fantastically. GPs mobilised early, organised themselves largely without government intervention as they saw a need to act fast and protect both the staff and the patients.
ReplyDeleteSince lockdown most GPs are doing telephone consultations or video consultations and treating most things over the phone but they are bringing patients in if they need to examine them or if they need dressing changes/stitches out/injections/blood tests etc
Last week in my NHS job I brought in several Patients who I wanted to examine. I asked them to wear a mask.
It was mostly for reassurance for the patients. And all were reassured.
Most conditions can be treated over the phone or via video.
For instance skin complaints - Photos of rashes are sent to dermatologists if the GP cannot diagnose it themselves. We have a great set up where we ping across the photo and history, derm then reply with their thoughts. This is much quicker than what used to exist when we had to refer patients. A lot of technology services have improved as a
consequence, simply by necessity.
Certain services are reopening - so for instance anyone addicted to controlled medication can be referred to a drug dependency clinic. Physios are seeing patients in person and remotely. Oncologists have been running their services since lockdown but with a much more careful setup.
I think different practices provide different experiences but I was very impressed with how GPs have handled the crisis. Unlike Germany, our case numbers were very high, grew rapidly and at the beginning lots of GPs got v sick with covid (they think due to high viral load exposure over short time) So in that sense they made a tough but necessary call to physically shut practices. Any patients with covid symptoms that needed examining for any reason had to be seen, hence the hot hubs were opened and that’s where GPs would see patients with covid symptoms who may be suffering from something else but it wasn’t safe to bring them into a GP surgery.
GPs are slowly opening up their doors to patients again and there will be green zones and red zones.
Germany has never had a full lockdown approach, ... so it’s like comparing apples and pears.