My thoughts on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

As we all know, we’re currently in a pandemic, caused by the coronavirus.

According to the National Health Service (NHS) UK website, “COVID-19 is a new illness that can affect your lungs and airways. It's caused by a virus called coronavirus. Symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) are a cough, a high temperature and shortness of breath. Simple measures like washing your hands often with soap and water can help stop viruses like coronavirus (COVID-19) spreading.“

The virus can spread through droplets, so ensuring you cough into a tissue and sanitize or wash your hands often will help minimise the risk of contracting the virus. I have recently started working within the NHS after nearly two years of working within the private sector. To be candid, I’m so grateful that I’m currently working in the public sector because I’ve seen and learnt so much, especially in this pandemic season.

Due to the outbreak of this virus, I have seen so many sudden decisions made within the public healthcare sector to help combat the outbreak, such as:

-          Routine Breast Screening programmes have been paused.

-          Cancer treatments will be prioritised for those most in need.

-          Chemotherapy patients will have oral treatment rather than intravenous treatment.

-          Many surgeries will be cancelled except operations that are needed within 24 hours to save a life or limit disease progression e.g fast growing tumours.

-          Cancer treatment such as radiotherapy fractionation is being shortened.

-          Radiotherapy treatment is delayed.

-          Treatments that are not the current gold standards will be considered.

-          Patients will be categorised by treatment intent and risk benefit.

Although these decisions help reduce the outbreak of the virus, we are uncertain of how long this crisis will last, it could be a few months or even a year. These decisions will not only impact people’s lives but ultimately their prognosis, survival and their quality of life. For example, a patient whose surgery has been cancelled might be in excruciating pain which will hinder their day to day life.

More diseases will be detected later and affect the treatment options even after the pandemic is over because GP practices are closed and are accepting reduced numbers, screening programmes and diagnostic interventions are very limited. The UK government and the NHS are trying their best to help combat this crisis so things can go back to normal quickly, however here are my thoughts/suggestions regarding COVID -19:

-          Hygiene: As I mentioned earlier, the virus spreads via droplets; we know that there is a shortage of hand sanitizers in supermarkets because everyone is in a panic state, also online people are paying inflated prices for basic necessities; however if I was in a governmental position I would implement the free distribution of hand sanitizers to everyone. WHY (?) – If more people can sanitize their hands quickly, it will reduce the spread even more as people might not necessarily have access to wash their hands immediately especially when in supermarkets.

-          Continuous learning from others: There are countries such as China and Italy who have and are still dealing with this outbreak, however if we want to overcome this pandemic quickly, we must learn and ask questions from these countries to know how the outbreak spread so fast, things that they have learnt and wished they had implemented earlier so we can implement these now rather than later. Especially with the workforce within the health sector so care  is still being delivered to patients or those affected by COVID-19.

-          Supermarket hygiene:  Although most people are self-isolated, working from home and avoiding public gathering, people are constantly in supermarkets in order to stockpile or get basic necessities and mostly likely won’t be observing the social distancing rule when picking shopping items, however the supermarkets can soon become a breeding ground for the virus, I would also suggest regularly disinfecting the supermarkets.

-          Collaborative work with private sector: In order to reduce the burden on the NHS, I’d suggest that some surgeries, diagnostic investigation, screening and many more be deffered to the private sector. The private sector sometimes have a contract with the NHS to help the 62 day cancer waiting time, although there is payment involved in this transaction, at a time like this I’d expect private sectors to reach out more to the NHS sector to help relieve stress and impact the lives of others as their hospitals and clinics will be less crowded, individualised care can be given as well.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the frontline workers such as the doctors, nurses, radiographers, healthcare assistants, midwives and many others in the public sector for the  outstanding work we do as we constantly put our lives at risk to help the general public.

Thank you for reading.

With Love,

Mary

xx