Read on Twitter
Something is bugging me:
Today, the prevalence of #covid19 in the UK is one in 4000 which has nearly halved in the last week.
We test all our elective patients with two swabs, which has about 95% likelihood for picking up this one patient. Therefore we’ll miss one in 800,000.
Today, the prevalence of #covid19 in the UK is one in 4000 which has nearly halved in the last week.
We test all our elective patients with two swabs, which has about 95% likelihood for picking up this one patient. Therefore we’ll miss one in 800,000.
For the elective pathways the NHS is setting up we not only require our patients to have these swabs, but also to self-isolate *along with their family* for two weeks before their operation.
This means that anyone whose job is in danger will not want to have surgery. Anyone looking after children cannot allow them to go to school if they want to have their operation.
I recently spoke to a fertility doctor, and with these guidelines women who are not lucky enough to be able to work from home will effectively have to take four months off work in order to complete one cycle.
All for a one in a million chance of missing an infected case.
All for a one in a million chance of missing an infected case.
Surgery is important for our nation’s health. Elective surgery cannot wait for ever. Hernias become strangulated, gall bladder disease can cause pancreatitis and death. Surely at the current prevalence rate insisting that our patients self-isolate for two weeks is unnecessary?
We cannot put our patients at risk by making their access to healthcare so difficult they have to choose between having their operation and allowing their children to go to school. For a one in a million chance of missing a patient with c19. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53349888
(Feel free to shoot me down in flames if I’ve got the maths wrong or I’ve totally missed something).
(I think it’s 1:80,000 but my point still stands and if you add clinical assessment then it probably brings it up to 1:800,000, thanks @AliJaneMoore )
