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Sounds rough Polytrix. Seems pretty crazy to redeploy a Speech and Language Therapist to a frontline pandemic situation. Almost like getting a car mechanic to work immediately on repairing a sinking cruise ship. As others have said, look after yourself & none of this was your responsibility. 

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30 minutes ago, Polytrix said:

I work for the NHS in England in Birmingham and was redeployed as a Health Care Assistant (normally I'm a newly qualified Speech and Language Therapist  - I only started in early January!) during the peak of deaths in my area. I'm now off work recovering with what is probably post-traumatic stress. It was absolute chaos and really horrible. I've learnt a life time of lesson in like 5 weeks and should probably write a book about my experience or something. Crazy. I'm really terrified about a second wave, I'm pretty much going to refuse redeployment if that happens again. From my experience on the ''front line'' I personally think the way the UK has handled this is absolutely appaling and as much as it's shit, I think we should stay strongly locked down for as long as we possibly can genuinelly as otherwise an even more sizable chunk of our wonderful elderly population will be wiped out. ? 

It's positive obviously that death rates are continuing to drop around the world and that's amazing right, I'm not a total doom merchant but I just think the general public have no idea how many people have and will die from this.

Eh oop duck, frontline is a battle. I don’t want to patronise you with “thank you for your service” line, but I work with ptsd clients & mental health cases gone tits up due to failed care plans. If you want any guidelines for approaching primary care gp’s or first-step self care methodologies, more than happy to help. Clicked on your profile but couldn’t see the dm button. Fully respect your privacy too & don’t mean to pry.

An olde mate is/was a veteran of community high dependency care, mainly doing palliative care packages ie people who want to die at home, got redeployed to a&e and his words mirror yours. He’s had lot of experience dealing with death after death & he’s staggered by this shit.

Take some time the next few months. Extreme stress can subside naturally over time, but every situation & person is unique even if themes overlap. EMDR would be my best advise if things are on top, but it’s face to face & access is thorny. That’s where advocacy works. Anything I can help with send us a dm. You’re not alone.

 

 

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17 hours ago, zero said:

so glad we're past the doom & gloom phase and can post stupid comedic shit in this thread again.

just to recap, the thread started as funny pictures of people in China wearing plastic jugs on their heads when it was still called the Wuhan virus. moved from there to toilet paper jokes. then the waves of doom & gloom rolled in and it seemed like we were all gonna die. serious posts for dozens of pages. now we're back to comedy, as we're all stuck in an uncertain limbo of "are we back to normal yet?"... 

That might have been a little premature ...

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Thank you very much everyone. Luckily I'm very self aware and aware of mental health. I've actually already got a contact with an awe inspiringly good CBT psychotherapist I've worked with in the past who has been guiding me really well (for free too as she's so lovely) and I know what to do now to work through this but essentially I'm really at risk of PTSD if I don't process what I've actually been through. I think my mood has dropped too and being really crap with self-care etc so I'm going to address all that really seriously now. It's actually quite therapeutic just for me to type here about what it was like even though I know this really isn't the forum. Ultimately I've got to face what I went through and sort of work through all the emotions. Not easy tho as it's all been compartmentalised away as it was so traumatic for me. I had no training, no explanation of what I should and shouldn't be exposing myself to so I was totally vunlerable not only with regards to exposure to the virus itself but also like, I was being treated like a HCA when I've never done that before so I was doing an entirely different job and thus also exposed to how pressured the NHS is and how lacking care can be especially at a time like this when people, in mind, deserved so much love and respect. Dying in hospital without no loved ones able to see you and dying so rapidly is just horrible. It wasn't just the exposure to death that has upset me it's also just the brazen lack of initiative and proactivitiy that staff that were doing this as a day job were exhibiting at the time. It's understandable though as people didn't want to expose themselves either but I of course did in every conceivable way and in any way I could....luckily I think I actually caught the virus in the early days of it being rife in this area so thank god I didn't get it full on (I assume I have antibodies basically - I'm awaiting testing. Interestingly 95% of all the staff who have been tested for the antibodies this far have all came back as saying they have it - so that means the majority of frontline staff were totally exposed during this perioid too despite the PPE etc etc)..so i mean that's crazy too. Yes, there are huge positives I will take from this, profound realisations about life and death and the NHS too and I did meet and work with some incredible lovely people but yeah..lamb to the slaughter.

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Pleasure. I was literally fulled on adrenaline for like 5 weeks and now coming back to my normal job feels like a life ago. It's very odd. I'll be OK I think but jesus, life time of learning in one experience. 

Look afer yourself people and take this seriosuly. It's taken a huge chunk of the UK elderly population.

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2 hours ago, cwmbrancity said:

Eh oop duck, frontline is a battle. I don’t want to patronise you with “thank you for your service” line, but I work with ptsd clients & mental health cases gone tits up due to failed care plans. If you want any guidelines for approaching primary care gp’s or first-step self care methodologies, more than happy to help. Clicked on your profile but couldn’t see the dm button. Fully respect your privacy too & don’t mean to pry.

An olde mate is/was a veteran of community high dependency care, mainly doing palliative care packages ie people who want to die at home, got redeployed to a&e and his words mirror yours. He’s had lot of experience dealing with death after death & he’s staggered by this shit.

Take some time the next few months. Extreme stress can subside naturally over time, but every situation & person is unique even if themes overlap. EMDR would be my best advise if things are on top, but it’s face to face & access is thorny. That’s where advocacy works. Anything I can help with send us a dm. You’re not alone.

 

 

Thanks to you especially. Yes, I think it's like I'm experiencing this massive come down off being totally wired for weeks. Extreme stress you've put that very well. I need to sort of calm back down and stop feeling so wired all the time but yes, it's going to take some time. 

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2 hours ago, rhmilo said:
3 hours ago, dingformung said:

Healthcare workers should get rewarded a sabbatical year

Not at the same time, I hope.

lol, no, but a year off to spend time with family or to travel or just get your head clear at a chosen year in the future would be a good way to say thank you. Isn't that a thing the UK government could actually realise since their healthcare system is state-run? better than "thank you for your service" or clapping lol

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Haha. Oh my god to be fair the clapping during the peak weeks totally set me off in tears as I felt appreciated. I've gone through this massively traumatic experience and feel totally unrewarded for my tireless efforts actually. I think I'm processing a lot of resentment as I was just treated like a fuck puppet the whole time and barely thanked. I did from the patients at times tho so that's wonderful ? The clapping was nice and very emotional for many of us in the first weeks. The whole health service was being totally hammered by this fucking thing. Grrrr

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2 hours ago, dingformung said:

lol, no, but a year off to spend time with family or to travel or just get your head clear at a chosen year in the future would be a good way to say thank you. Isn't that a thing the UK government could actually realise since their healthcare system is state-run? better than "thank you for your service" or clapping lol

The clapping thing has me furious. The same people who clap for health care are the people that for ten years have been voting for the party that has has been making cuts in health care budgets, to the point where at the height of the crisis people had to be sent to IC units in Germany, and that will do it again at the next election because the prime minister looks so good on tv.

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2 hours ago, rhmilo said:

The clapping thing has me furious. The same people who clap for health care are the people that for ten years have been voting for the party that has has been making cuts in health care budgets, to the point where at the height of the crisis people had to be sent to IC units in Germany, and that will do it again at the next election because the prime minister looks so good on tv.

Talking about the Dutch situation? 

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What's really interesting for me now is that upon reflection is so clear how royally fucked over I was. A newly qualified Speech and Language Therapist thrown into a frontline role and thrown like a rag doll from Covid+ ward to covid+ ward doing everything you can possibly imagine..yes, that too and yes that as well. But I was just like in crisis mode I couldn't see past it. I should have been withdrawn. Most of my colleagues were doing their normal jobs in some capcity or another whilst the newly qualified was sent off into the fray. The whole redeployment situation was incredibly poorly managed. I appreciate it's unprecedented but come on, it's just not appropriate. Now I have to come to terms with the fact that like patient care is massively variable and in some cases really horrendous and that's who I work for ? It's a really horrible reality to come to terms with but I suppose I have to or I should probably quit. It's like realisations that like staff who have been working in the service battle with their entire careers and I've been exposed to the extent of it during a pandemic with no training, supervision or oversight. I'm amazed I didn't get Covid but I'm certainly an emotional wreck and now in recovery though. I deserve an appology and atleast some kind of recognition surely. I bet there are tonnes of staff feeling this way. Really sad. Do you know what I'm going to do though, I'm going to sort my head and return an even better carer than I was before and continue to advocate for patients in the same way I normally do. Huge personal growth coming my way I think but I need to sort out all these thoughts.

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Thank you very much! I toally threw myself under the bus. It's mad when I think back on it. It reveals so much about yourself when you're forced to operate in a crisis. 

It's kind of scray to realise how prepared I am to sacrifice myself for others. Good and bad. I bet there are tonnes of NHS workers off work with the same as me right  now. Madness.

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19 hours ago, rhmilo said:

The clapping thing has me furious. The same people who clap for health care are the people that for ten years have been voting for the party that has has been making cuts in health care budgets, to the point where at the height of the crisis people had to be sent to IC units in Germany, and that will do it again at the next election because the prime minister looks so good on tv.

I live in a working class tory area and it's crazy. Fuck them. The amount of ignorance shown by the idiots on my constituency is enough to make anyone furious.

Edited by milkface
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That's very kind thank you. I'm starting to feel a bit better each day really like my energy is coming back. Start counselling tomorrow so yeah, it's kind of terrifying as I'm going to have to hash up a lot of stuff. Lots of tears to come I think ? I'll be OK in time I'm sure.

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Thank you everyone. This has genuinelly been helping me a lot. My manager is behaving all embarrased and weird. Staff wellbeing and safety was totally ignored. Expect for this to blow up on the news in the coming weeks. 

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16 hours ago, Polytrix said:

That's very kind thank you. I'm starting to feel a bit better each day really like my energy is coming back. Start counselling tomorrow so yeah, it's kind of terrifying as I'm going to have to hash up a lot of stuff. Lots of tears to come I think ? I'll be OK in time I'm sure.

Reprocessing comes in the form of what’s known as graded exposure. Imagine a saw where you file off all the jagged teeth. There are 5 facets - triggers, emotions, thoughts, images & sensations. Ask about EMDR, seriously, as back up if nothing else. Bilateral stimulation. Most English NHS health boards offer it, but if you’re met with any institutional belligerence, ask a local mental health advocacy service to attend preliminary appointments with you. Just a heads up mate. 

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Yeah, fair enough. I actually know that the CBT therapist I work with is EMDR trained so if it comes to that then I'd do that straight away yeah. I know about EMDR actually. 

I think it's more that I have PTS rather than PTSD. Will get signed off work now for what is usually, apparently depending on the person 4-6 weeks for the brain to process and recover. I'm feeling better each day but going back to my job after a week off where I basically just loved up with my gf in a bubble of a avoidance wasn't helpful. Welcome to the NHS right! Fuck.

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Aye, the disorder part is down to lack of supervision & inappropriate care plans. Good to have a partner onboard too.

If you're speech & language qualified, at some point you'll be able to get on with that work. That objective still stands, as do you. Elbow-bump!

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