So it was good to hear Nicky Credland, Chairwoman of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses providing a more thoughtful perspective to the increasing levels of mawkishness. Interviewed on Newsnight, she confessed that she and many other healthcare professionals were becoming increasingly uneasy at the characterisation of NHS staff as "heroes". Yes, she said, the death of medical personnel was sad. But the truth was that they and their colleagues were all highly trained practitioners who just wanted to get on with their jobs with the right kit. Futhermore, all the heightend emotion of the broadcast media's coverage was giving rise to completely unrealistic expectations and she dismissed Emily Maitlis's assertion that nurses were "angels". Nurses weren't "ethereal beings" she said, flitting in and out to dispense miracles. Emily looked a tiny bit crest-fallen.
The mood identified by Credland feels as phoney as it is misplaced. The current crisis is a medical crisis and a civil one. More specifically, it is one which has cast doubt upon the ability of the country's healthcare systems to cope with the challenges thrown up by a thoroughly nasty virus. The government's entire strategy has been driven by the desire to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed, but it seems pretty clear that this approach is already costing lives. The order to "Protect the NHS" has, dare one say it, been too successful. At the geographical heart of the UK's pandemic, London's Nightingale Hospital, built and equipped in nine days by a mixture of army personnel and civilian contractors lies mostly empty. Meanwhile, the number of untreated cancer sufferers continues to mount. Now, very late in the day and in spite of all the evidence that the virus disproportionately affects the aged (90% of Covid related deaths are over 60) and those with pre-existing conditions, the focus of attention has fallen on care homes for the elderly, where the death toll has risen sharply. If the measure of a country's commitment to the highest standards of citizenship and civilisation can be gauged by the ways in which its prisoners and its old folk are treated, then the UK has a lot of work to do.
At least in a hospital, Covid sufferers have a chance of survival and an ease of their suffering. But nursing and care homes, so long the Cinderella's of the UK's huge and sprawling healthcare and social care infrastructure have been overwhelmed. If anyone deserves the title of hero, they are likely to be found among the underpaid and often un-equipped staff of this sector, many from abroad with few rights of citizenship. Meanwhile, their charges are forced to endure a horrible death in which many quite literally drown in their own mucus. But although this was all entirely predictable, it has taken until the sixth week of the "lockdown" to start to mobilise testing and adequate PPE for this shamefully neglected sector.
The Covid 19 crisis has exposed profound weaknesses and failure at both the institutional and political level. The government has boxed itself into a corner with a narrative that places the needs of the NHS above almost all other. This bloated and inefficient totem has been allowed to achieve a cult status that will make it almost impossible to reform even as its every demand is granted. More immediately, the government has said that the conditions for ending the "lockdown" must include the adequacy of PPE, stopping the NHS being overwhelmed and eliminating the risk of a "second wave". National wellbeing is being sacrificed to an institutional imperative and to the questionable notion that (in the absence of an effective vaccine) Covid 19 can, in the words of the PM, be "wrestled to the ground".
Meanwhile, while the BBC plods around trying (improperly) to doorstep the relatives of "victims", companies are voting with their feet. The announcement by British Airways that it is likely to dismiss a full quarter of its workforce, notwithstanding the government's employment support measures, is a truly terrifying reminder of the long term damage being inflicted. The Prime Minister, no doubt sobered by his own near-death experience, is said to face some "indescribably difficult decisions". Yet surely it's a pretty simple and single one: do you want to work through this, or do you want the UK and its citizens to go bust?
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