NHS Louisa Jordan

The Scottish Government could make use of the NHS Louisa Jordan building by transferring current Covid -19 patients from within a pre-determined radius into this facility and staffed by a mixture of current NHS staff and returners. Covid -19 patients out with this area could be treated at a designated hospital within each Health Board area (where this is possible) allowing all other sites to restart essential services (following a deep clean) including elective operations, cancer screening etc. If, as is likely, the lockdown was to continue for the next few weeks this would give clinical staff the time needed to transfer current patients to The Louisa Jordan or the designated hospital and allow the necessary isolation time for the remaining non Covid patients to be confirmed clear of the virus before any new admissions. This would give the public more confidence to attend appointments and would remove a lot of the anxiety. It would be necessary for the non Covid patients remaining in hospital to be tested regularly and if they received a positive result then they could be isolated and transferred out to the appropriate facility the same as the initial patients. This would not impact on families as strict isolation seems to be in place so visiting is not allowed anyway. The only potential problem would be at the point of discharge to get these patients home to their own areas but I'm sure that either family members or indeed Patient Transport (normally used for outpatient appointments) would be able to assist in this.

Why the contribution is important

Every life is important and whilst the focus has understandably been on saving as many Covid-19 patients as possible we should not postpone cancer screenings and elective surgeries etc for any longer than is absolutely necessary. The routine work of the NHS on a daily basis not only saves lives but can improve the quality of life for all sorts of people with various health conditions.

by ALLLY on May 06, 2020 at 07:55PM

Current Rating

Average rating: 3.5
Based on: 8 votes

Comments

  • Posted by theresasheldon May 06, 2020 at 20:07

    Please use this facility. Ship all covid patients there - they can't be visited anyway so it won't affect visitorsit will be safer for them and for all, use like the TB sanatorium where people can recover and return to community
  • Posted by Kylesku May 06, 2020 at 20:17

    It should be used to hel pclear the backlog of other hopsital cases where people have either had trheir appointments cancelled or been too terrified to go to hospital. The NHS will take years to recover from this & willl need all the help it can get
  • Posted by Tricia1974 May 06, 2020 at 20:20

    It's all fair and well thinking we can uplift and move all greater Glasgow hospital current covid patients with their ventilator status and very poorly health into this hospital... we should admit all new positive tests there as a first choice and free up parts of hospitals to return operations et al...but to move all current wards full .. no
  • Posted by Likemin May 06, 2020 at 20:27

    Consider that healthboards outwith the central-belt would have to ship patients for hundreds of miles if they used only one hospital. This idea impacts other areas disproportionately.
  • Posted by emwpaisley May 06, 2020 at 20:57

    This was the biggest waste of money by the Scottish govt. 300 beds v 3 toilets!! Open plan layout !! Seriously! Politically the govt would like to see it is use. - protect themselves! We have 600 ICU beds with only 1/6 in use
  • Posted by Outragedoldbag May 06, 2020 at 21:35

    Who will look after these patients ? The staff who work there will have to be redeployed from elsewhere. This is the reason the English equivalents have not been used.
  • Posted by ALLLY May 06, 2020 at 22:04

    When I proposed the use of The Louisa Jordan for Covid patients I was thinking of those patients who are not in intensive care and are in hospitals that are predominantly in the central belt within a reasonable distance of the Louisa Jordan. I was not recommending the transfer of patients from areas like Highland, Grampian or southern Scotland Health Boards. In these areas I was proposing that each of these Health Boards could identify one site (where possible) within their hospital estates that could accommodate their Covid patients therefore allowing the rest of their hospitals to return to some kind of normal operation. I don’t think that the Louisa Jordan is equipped to operate like a normal hospital so don’t know that using this facility to clear the backlog would be feasible although I could be wrong. The figures released today show that Greater Glasgow and Clyde currently has 509 hospital patients and right now The Louisa Jordan has only 300 beds (although this can be increased to 1000 beds if needed and/or appropriate) so that obviously wouldn’t work at least initially but some of Greater Glasgow’s patients and patients from other Health boards such as Lanarkshire (136 patients), Forth Valley (27 patients) and Lothian (197 patients) could quite easily fill these beds if that was deemed feasible whilst increasing incapacity to accommodate the rest as we go forward. At the end of the day we all have to find a way through this crisis as best we can and my opinion is that the Scottish Government were damned if they did and would have been damned if they didn’t build a facility such as this. If the Scottish Government hadn’t built this facility and had our hospitals been overrun similar to the scenes from Italy, Spain etc that were televised at the beginning of this pandemic they would have been criticised for being unprepared.

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