Covid-19 and advantages of communication to hospitals or overseas by the internet

THE BAD NEWS - ISOLATION

I keep reading that people are horrified that they cannot touch their relatives who have covid-19. But this problem is nothing new. When my aunt Pearl died in London, England, in the days when she was dying she could not bear to be touched and yelped or pulled away.

My father in Watford Hospital in London, had clostridium difficule and was kept alone in isolation. I had to wear protective clothing and was afraid to touch him because I did not want to give him my cold.

Also in London, in Barnet hospital, My uncle had MRSA and was moaning when the nurses turned him to change his bedding. I had to put on protective apron and gloves and could not touch him.

His neighbour had to look through a ward window into the isolation room. The neighbour  said, 'I could see him but he could not see me.'

So isolation of those who are dying, and inability to to neighbour such them, is nothing new.

THE GOOD NEWS - ZOOM ON MOBILE PHONES

The great news is that even with a mobile phone you can contact your bed-ridden relative, see them, and they can see you. Some hospital staff have taken the trouble to obtain a hospital owned device which can be loaned to a patient, or carried to them by staff, so that the patient can see their family. I have seen reports of this in the USA, Europe and Asia. 

Stanford has done this.

John Hopkins Hospital, Maryland, USA has organized this.

• About the Author
  Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
  I and my family have lived in the UK, Spain, the USA and Singapore. I am a trave writer and phtographer and teacher of English A level and English as a foreign language.
  
  Please come to a Toastmasters International Club where the English clubs have a langauge evaluator or grammarian.  We also have French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and other language clubs based in Singapore and many more online around the world which because of Covid-19 are now meeting online.
  
  I am President of Braddell Heights Advanced, meeting every Wednesday, on zoom the first Wednesday of the month but the other Wednesdays are workshops on app learncool.sg
  Or quicker to type and easier to remember:  tinyurl.com/BHACOOL
  
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• https://photoscissors.com/
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My friend Sally replied:
But that thought doesn’t make it easier to deal with. I have never been through this trauma but feel heartbroken for those who have to lose their loved ones without a hug and a last word. Sorry for your losses, Angela ❤️

Thanks for helping me clarify my thoughts, Sally. I meant that we cannot blame hospital staff for acting unreasonably. Isolating peole who are infectious or not touching them is not a new, over the top reaction. It also means that if Covid-19 goes away we still have a problem to deal with, which is how to communicate sympathy with ailing loved ones we cannot touch. The new system of letting them communicate through Ipads is new. Between 2000 and 2005 you were forbidden to take phones into hospitals and it was very hard for patients to contact their families. I remember my father who died in 2005 would have to hobble to a phone on wheels, find coins - the sound would go off after a minute or two when the coins ran out. I think the way people can see sick people in hospital using Ipads is miraculous. I'm waiting for the day when everybody has an Ipad by their phone and can opt in so that family at home can be on 24-hour watch and immediately notify the hospital if the patient looks ill or worse or simply wants a sip of water.