Agonising cost of no hugs in hospital
and worst of all, it may last for another year
There’s one thing I wish I could prescribe my patients. It’s not an expensive pill or a cutting-edge treatment. It’s simply a hug. Often what people need most is human contact, particularly when they’re unwell. hugging someone, holding their hand or even a kind touch of their arm when they are upset can be the best medicine.
Yet on Nhs wards up and down the country, sick people still aren’t able to be comforted by their nearest and dearest. All visitors are banned (except in special circumstances, such as when someone is dying) to reduce the risk of introducing Covid to wards.
even the Queen has been unable to visit Prince Philip, 99, who having been admitted as a ‘precautionary’ measure on February 16 and then undergoing heart surgery, has now been in hospital for almost a month.
If you’re only in for a day or two, not seeing friends and family isn’t so bad. But for some patients with complex problems it can mean not seeing people for far longer.
In an interview with an intensive care unit doctor last week, TV presenter Kate Garraway spoke about not being able to visit her 53-year-old husband, Derek Draper, who is still in intensive care.
DEREK was admitted to hospital a year ago, and although he no longer has coronavirus, his body was completely ravaged by the disease.
Kate and their two children have no idea when, or if, he will be able to return home and Kate has not been able to see him since Christmas.
The doctor said how guilty he felt at enforcing the ban and although Kate tried to reassure him that the public understood the reasons behind it and appreciated the difficulties faced by Nhs staff, I do know what he means as I feel guilty, too, having to enforce this on the psychiatric ward where I work.
And it’s unlikely to get better any time soon.
The royal College of Physicians warned last week that people probably won’t be able to visit loved ones in hospital ‘well into next year’, despite falling numbers of coronavirus cases and the success of the vaccination rollout.
Of course, I totally understand the reasons behind this.
Wards are busy places full of sick people. Visitors risk introducing Covid to patients who are already very frail and unwell.
It’s also difficult to maintain social distancing on wards when there are visitors. so it definitely makes complete sense.
But it’s also important to acknowledge that this comes with a range of consequences. scared, frightened, lonely patients are having to cope on their own.
You can’t underestimate the great effects that seeing a lovedone can have on someone who is a patient in hospital.
I used to see this happen all the time, especially when I worked in geriatrics, where patients tend to be admitted to hospital for a much longer period of time. After being visited, patients would seem much brighter and they’d be sitting up in bed. It was very much a tonic, but now all of this has gone. It’s not just on medical wards. In psychiatric wards as well, people with acute mental health problems can’t have any visitiors over either. Many of them are in hospital after suicide attempts or are psychotic. They are often incredibly distressed and yet they can’t be comforted by those who are closest to them. A few weeks ago I was taking blood from a young man with schizophrenia who was very unwell after he stopped taking his medication. he had become paranoid and tried to cut his wrists, and during that process, had severed a tendon which then needed surgery before he was able to be transferred over to our ward. he was now no longer psychotic but very depressed. he was sitting in the clinic room, clearly very upset and low. As I knelt down he spontaneously flung his arms round me while he sobbed on my shoulder. It was utterly heartbreaking.
It should have been his mum or dad he was doing this to, but because of the no visitor rule he hadn’t seen any of his family members for months.
It really is awful. It feels incredibly cruel having to tell loved ones they can’t come to the wards as visitors.
One friend who is a nurse on a dementia ward was in floods of tears after helping a confused elderly man video call his wife.
he didn’t understand why she hadn’t come to see him and kept asking her if she still loved him and when he was going home.
he started crying, his wife started crying, and the nurse started crying.
Over the past year there’s been lots of sad and awful things because of this virus and this is just yet another one, but the alternative — that wards of patients are put at risk — is far worse.
I hope Kate Garraway is right and that the public do understand why we are so strict.
That doesn’t take away though how uncomfortable and guilty staff are feeling when enforcing the no-visitor rule.
We know that while we are doing our very best to care for our patients, it’s no substitute for a hug from someone who loves you.
NHS waiting times for cancer patients are at a record high. Only 83 per cent of suspected cases are being seen by a doctor within two weeks. In the service I work for, the psychotherapy waiting list is well over a year. I worry delays are the start of the post-pandemic reckoning for the NHS.