Hi Ruth and everyone,
Actually work hasn't been so bad. We've gone from mainly face-to-face
consultations to what they call 'total triage' - nobody gets to see the
doctor without him telephoning them first - within the space of a week.
The nurse is still seeing people: you can't do things like blood tests
and dressings over the telephone. But she has to wear the protective
gear - face mask, gown, gloves - and change it once every few patients;
and we've cancelled all the non-urgent stuff, like diabetic checks and
asthma checks, the aim being to only have one or two people in the
surgery at a time, not counting the staff.
The local chemist has gone into meltdown. Everybody is panic-ordering
their medication all at once. I went past the chemist on Saturday
morning and the queue of people trying to get prescriptions was out the
door. Lots of people are jumping ship from the local chemist to online
pharmacies like Pharmacy2U, because the online pharmacies are set up to
do home deliveries; but the elderly, who are the ones who really need
home deliveries because they're the ones who can least afford to catch
the virus, are least likely to make this move because they're the least
techno-savvy section of society. There are other people who can help
them out, though - 'social prescribing', which is where we direct
patients to 'helping hand' agencies, has suddenly gone from being a
peripheral thing to a front-and-centre option.
Two things we're trying to get up and running are video consultations
and remote working. We were given a laptop about a year ago by the
Health Authority, which works off a VPN link, and the idea is that if
you're at home and stick your smart card in it, you can log into the
clinical system at the surgery and see patient records and do electronic
prescribing and stuff just as if you were there. This would be
brilliant, especially if David (the doctor) has to self-isolate at some
point but still feels well enough to work - but the VPN licence has run
out. We contacted the IT department to get it renewed once the crisis
started to get serious, about ten days ago now, but of course they've
been overwhelmed, so they haven't sorted it out for us yet.
As regards video consultations - which would be really useful for things
like people with rashes - we've managed to get these working via mobile
phones, but it's very glitchy because the WiFi at the surgery keeps
going wrong. Either it doesn't work at all, or it works with no internet
connection, which has been pretty much how it's been ever since we had
WiFi put in. The other option is to do video consultations on a desktop
or laptop computer: there's a startup tech company called Nye, based in
Oxford, which offers this for free, and we got it up and running on
David's desktop, which is equipped with a USB camera - but then the
camera immediately went wrong. This is pretty much how things work in
the NHS. If the technology was in place and reliable, we could do a
whole lot more.
The most frustrating thing for me and David, I think, is the sheer
volume of updates we're being sent. If I see one more email titled
'Covid-19 - urgent - for immediate action' I'm going to do an act of
violence. You physically cannot keep up with all this stuff when the
phone is constantly ringing and you've got a million other things to
deal with. And the lack of testing is frustrating too. We've got a nurse
who's been off for a week with Coronavirus-style symptoms, but of course
we don't know whether it really is the Coronavirus or not - so if she
comes back to work and then gets another sore throat, she'll have to
self-isolate for another week.
On the other hand in some ways it's kind of exhilarating. Suddenly we've
been given a licence to ignore all the bureaucratic crap we usually
spend our time struggling with, and that's quite liberating; and the
pace at which we've managed to reorganize our services, with a lot of
cooperation from the patients, it has to be said, has been startling.
On a personal level my main concern has been shopping. I go to bed
worrying about whether I'm going to be able to get any food in the shops
the next day. I've done all right so far, but I normally don't get up to
the Co-Op, which is our local supermarket, until after three o'clock,
and by that time there's virtually nothing on the shelves; so I've been
having to dodge out of work and make special trips up there at about
9.30, once I've got somebody else to cover the front desk. The other
thing is that my demented Mum is in a care home a few miles from here,
and they've closed their doors to visitors, so instead of going to see
her twice a week, all of a sudden I'm not seeing her at all, which is a
big change to my routine.
You do get very fed up with the stupidity of the public at times,
especially where things like panic buying and panic ordering of
prescriptions are concerned. You think to yourself 'This is what we're
like now - people have been brainwashed to be consumers, not citizens -
they don't know how to act responsibly towards one another any more'.
Then you come across people who are being really unselfish and helpful
towards one another, and you realize that things are a lot more nuanced
than that. And when I do get up to the Co-Op, everybody's giving
everybody else elbow-bumps and making jokes about the state of things,
and you think to yourself 'Oh well, at least there's one good thing
about Britain - we do have a sense of humour'. You find yourself
chatting to strangers, and you feel closer to the people who you already
know, because there's a sense of all being in it together. Then
something really annoying happens, or you have to deal with somebody
who's being completely self-centred and unreasonable, and you're back to
wanting to throttle everyone again.
Edward
On 22/03/2020 15:14, Ruth Catlow via NetBehaviour wrote:
Hello all,
This last couple of weeks have been full of chaos and uncertainty for
us in the UK - and much longer for others.
The sudden shut down is clearly distributing immediate and extreme
hardship very unevenly.
I personally found the indefinite postponement of Furtherfield's 2020
'Love Machines' programme last Monday (in the week we had planned to
announce everything) incredibly hard to do, and to handle. I know we
will adapt and find another way to make things work, but that doesn't
stop it being incredibly disappointing, frustrating and disorientating.
I'm now starting to adjust but I wanted to share this personal
(non-life-threatening) experience with you because I would like to
hear more from everyone about how the Corona virus is effecting them,
so we can build a better picture, beyond the numbers and the public
announcements, to understand how things are changing. And most of all
it would just be good to know how everyone is doing (from regular
contributors to all lurkers).
Warmly
Ruth
--
Co-founder & Artistic director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised
Arts Lab
+44 (0) 77370 02879
*Furtherfield *disrupts and democratises art and technology through
exhibitions, labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free
thinking.
furtherfield.org <http://www.furtherfield.org/>
*DECAL* Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0
technologiesresearch hub
for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies now.
decal.is <http://www.decal.is>
Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee
Registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
Registered business address: Carbon Accountancy, 80-83 Long Lane,
London, EC1A 9ET.
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