A few days ago I wrote about my husband’s granny still being in hospital even though we can’t quite work out why. Yesterday there was a new twist to the tale. Father in law got on the train and travelled into London to visit her only to find a notice on the door of the ward saying it was closed due to Norovirus .
Since Christmas (or just before for all I know) there have been many news stories about the extent to which this diarrhea and vomiting bug has been sweeping the country. Locally hospital wards have been closed as attempts are made to control its spread. People have been told not to go to their doctors surgery or to hospitals if they suspect they have the virus. But obviously that is easier said than done and spread it has.
My questions though are: if you shut a hospital ward to visitors and also there fore prevent the inhabitants from leaving then perhaps you could just inform people so that they don’t embark on a journey to visit their loved ones. FIL travelled home and then got MIL to ring the ward to find out what was happening and that granny was ok. She is fine apparently, but of course she is stuck there and at 96 years old and pretty frail I am worried that if we can’t get her out of there soon, she will be struck with one of these bugs from which she will be unable to recover.
The last hospital placement I was on saw 15 of 20 wards closed, along with theatres, ccu, icu and a stop on admissions. It was by the grace of some supreme deity that none of the older patients died. 2 months later the same virus is doing the rounds again. It’s everywhere and no-one is getting away from it.
The company that invents a vaccine for it will make them millions.
However we did everything we could to get people home and away from the bugs, especially if they didn’t need to be there. I hope she is allowed out before she catches it.