Good to hear that NHS England’s medical director Stephen Powis has encouraged people who are ill to seek medical help. Only half as many people as usual are going to A&E and it appears that some people who have suffered from heart attacks and strokes simply haven’t gone to hospital. “If you do have symptoms of stroke, chest pain and think it might be a heart attack, a sick child who is deteriorating, if you are a pregnant woman and the baby is not moving as much as it used to – it is important you don’t delay,” he said. Wise words.
We have all heard stories of people who have attended A&E for largely trivial reasons, with minor ailments that shouldn’t even necessitate a visit to the local pharmacists. But if people are not going to hospital now with life threatening conditions, Mr Powis’s words should be heeded.
My guess is that people are not attending hospital because they fear they might contract Covid-19. I am no expert on infectious diseases but I have always suspected that hospitals are probably the last places you need to be if you are sick because they are full of sick people. Certainly I am aware of people who went to hospital with one condition and came out – and, sadly some never came out of hospital – with another, that being Covid-19. On the basis of anecdotes alone, none of the people I knew, and knew of, survived.
As per usual in times of strife, mental health has resumed its wrongful position as the Cinderella service in the NHS, if it exists at all anymore. People with crippling depression, anxiety and any of the 57 varieties of mental illness literally have nowhere to do. I am grateful for the interest shown in mental health by a handful of people in public life and particularly the regular interventions of Prince William and Kate Middleton. That’s the state we have now gotten into, where members of an odd, hereditary, dysfunctional family, who live their lives in what is essentially an alternative universe, represent the last vestiges of hope for millions. Without the royal family, we might have nothing at all.
So, the lessons are clear. If you think you are physically ill with something serious, then seek urgent medical help. And if your mental health is unravelling, watch out for a few comforting words from a future heir to the throne. Prince William is our only hope right now if the drugs don’t work anymore. And mine certainly don’t.
