Covid cases: week 56… in-hospital lighting

We are helplessly watching the drift of an entire system that is spiraling out of control and from which our leaders (can we still call them our elected officials?) do not seem to know how to get out of it… when all we need to do is say STOP. Two professional groups have the ability (if not the duty) to say so but knowingly refrain from doing so, parliamentarians and physicians — all for the same reason, salary and reputation.

For the past year, we have been faced with a completely disproportionate, unjust and incoherent response. A double standard, essential versus non-essential, pro and anti. A system that, despite everything, has its followers, even many followers, but there are also, fortunately, people who question it.

Do you know that the only place where sanitary measures are not respected is the hospital? There is no control, no fine and no intimidation. Why? But simply because there is nothing unusual going on. We care for people who are more or less sick and who are more or less saturated on a recurring basis; saturation being a management objective. The only change comes from the media, without which no one would be aware of anything. We are dealing with a communication campaign that is either very well done or very badly done, depending on your point of view. For what purpose? The question is open.

Through this short testimony, I would like to enlighten you on how « covid cases » are accounted for in the hospital, I will try to summarize the new procedures put in place over the last year. Unprecedented because they would never have been imposed, a few years earlier, for a disease like influenza that kills as much, if not more, than covid. Look for the error.

In the hospital, it is necessary to differentiate between two starting situations⁽¹⁾:

In the case of the 1st situation: mandatory PCR test (in short: no test, no care)

• if (-) : the patient is lucky, everything will go as planned (the PCR could be (+) 2 days later, but this is not mentioned)

• if (+) :

- intervention cancelled even if no symptoms (the whole fear system is based on this, the asymptomatic!). Return home and quarantine.

- if hospitalization is deemed necessary: isolation for 14 days with all the extra workload that this implies (and therefore a cost).

The 2nd situation is subdivided into 2 categories:

The counting is therefore complex and requires a great rigor of evaluation of the symptoms called « covid » or not. This exercise is left to the discretion of the physician. There is no PCR testing after the 14 days of isolation or during the ICU stay.

So a « covid » patient staying in the ICU for 6 weeks will remain labeled « covid » for 6 weeks even if he/she has not been contagious for a long time. These isolations are a huge additional workload for permanently understaffed teams and probably inflate the statistics. For what purpose? I don’t know.

Of course, isolation in the ICU is common and helps to protect other patients and even the patient himself. This is not a new way of treatment, just like putting some patients on their stomach (prone position). What is surprising is the cumbersome protocols imposed, which have a definite impact on workload, cost in terms of materials and staff burnout.

Whether it is for an ordinary citizen, a nurse or a doctor, this crisis raises a lot of questions. We are faced with a system that has lost its internal compass. No one can figure it out anymore. Some of them show it, others resign themselves to it, but all of them wonder about it.

From my point of view, it is above all the excessive media coverage that is new, unnecessary and more harmful to public health than the virus itself!

To conclude:

• Elderly people die of the flu every year
• Overworked and overburdened nurses, it’s every year
• Hospitals at saturation point, it’s every year
• People over 80 years old who die have always been
• Patients put in « prone position » in the ICU, it is every year
• Children who contaminate their parents have always been
• Our immune system fights effectively against diseases, it is since always
• Washing your hands regularly and staying home when you’re sick has long been a given

…

• A pandemic of cases and not of patients, it is a 1st and it is this year
• A daily announcement of the number of deaths on the news (without putting them in perspective with the births, for example), it is a 1st and it is this year
• Images of patients in the ICU, this is a 1st and it’s this year
• Restrictions of fundamental freedoms (mobility, expression, meeting) for a disease that does not kill (almost), it is a 1st and it is this year
• A mRNA « vaccine » developed in 6 months, for a mutant virus, is a first and it is this year
• Passing vaccination as the only way to survive is a first and this year
• A disturbing silence of the legislative and judicial power, it is a 1st and it is this year
• To make our children bear the burden of the death of our parents is a 1st and it is this year
• Deciding that some people are essential and others are not is a first and this year

Should I continue?

Julie, committed citizen and hospital nurse