Petition to UK govt: 'Protect the NHS and All Healthcare: Require #MasksInHealthcare'

I think this is very relevant for us. I'm terrified every time I have to go to a healthcare setting, now that people are no longer wearing masks.

So many PwME had viral onset (me included).

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/636380

The blurb reads:

We urge the Government to implement a policy requiring mask wearing in all healthcare settings including hospitals, clinics and GP practices for staff, visitors and patients. An FFP2 minimum should be mandated, to protect against infectious diseases, including COVID-19.

Vulnerable patients, such as the elderly, individuals with weakened immune systems, and those undergoing treatments, are at higher risk of severe illness or death from infectious diseases.

Requiring everyone in healthcare settings to wear masks is a crucial preventive measure to reduce the spread of diseases, including COVID-19, and protect patients from airborne infections.

Masks act as a barrier, preventing transmission and safeguarding the health of patients and healthcare workers alike.​

 

Hopefully the health service will provide suitable masks on entry. Some people may not have them.

 

They certainly wont provide FFP2/3 they cant even be bothered to provide those to workers looking after people with covid, and they are pricey so they wont do that.

In some trusts they have resumed mask (surgical or 'face covering') mandates in hospitals but only in 'clinical areas'. So not in corridors, waiting areas etc. I just think that is totally illogical - like you wont catch it in the waiting room/corridor but you might in the consulting room - when actually the reverse seems likely given the numbers in & passing through those areas.
Is it more likely for the air to be full of particles in a room which has 30 people in it, and during the morning has had 200 people all coughing & talking & releasing particles before they went into their different consulting rooms, or in the consulting room which has had 2 clinicians and 10 patients in the same time period?

The main entrance which is teaming with people and has foot fall of thousands during a day... where no mask is required - because somehow it doesnt matter if you've got a 'cold' & spluttering everywhere so you can infect max number of people, becvause you're not in a clinical area. And of course not needed in lifts either where everyone is crammed together & no ventilation.

The idiocy just makes me crazy

 

Our surgery does, and they're available at the rheumatology clinic too. When I went for my Covid jab the pharmacist asked if I'd like him to wear one, and as there was a box on the table, I guess I could have asked for one if I wanted. So in some places they're available, but whether that'd be true if you were scooped up in the street with a broken ankle and taken to A&E, I'm not so sure.

 

@Sasha Thanks for starting this thread to share this extremely important petition!

@JemPD absolutely agree masks need to be worn everywhere you can catch respiratory infections. Rationing isn’t it?

Its also the case that the consulting rooms I’ve been in are very very confined spaces and you can’t can’t always open the windows if they even have any. As I’ve been assessed in literal walk in cupboards more than once. So with no airflow and exhalation particles build up per cubic meter there may be some justification to say that’s even worse…

@Kitty that’s amazing !
Should be standard bare minimum, but it’s not.
Not here