They Haven’t Done their Job!
‘Working day and night,’
They told us.
‘Tons of PPE.’
‘Straining every sinew,’
We are informed,
‘Testing you and me.’
Yet nurses risk their lives
Without the proper kit.
Untested and unsupported,
Covid came and they dealt with it.
Where was all the planning?
Where were the stockpiles?
Why should frontline workers
For testing travel miles?
There’s a deception – a cover up!
They’ve not done their job!
The death toll is astronomic!
What a useless mob!
Opher – 29.4.2020
These are the jokers that ran down the NHS for ten years, that drove doctors and nurses away in tens of thousands because of their hostile environment, who ignored the warnings of their own committees to stockpile equipment, who, for ideological reasons, refused aid from Europe, who ignored what was going on abroad, who ignored WHO warnings, who were complacent at the beginning and did not use testing and follow up to contain, who sacrificed the Care Homes, who hid behind ‘scientific advice’, who tried the folly of ‘herd immunity’, who were slow to lockdown, who have let it get out of control, who have the worst record in Europe!
They were arrogant, inept, complacent and did not do their job properly! All they had in their heads was Brexit!!
Well Opher, there are different viewpoints on this.
As to the lack of preparedness, I have to agree with you. The NHS is like a god to all the political parties – they think they will look better, the more money they throw at it. But the bureaucrats have, obviously, got it wrong. “My” MP, a certain Jeremy Hunt (for whom I have nothing but contempt), used to be health secretary. He got the NHS £20 billion (btw, that’s £300 for every man woman and child in the UK) to prepare for situations like this one. What did they do with that money? What bureaucrats always do; fritter it away on stuff that doesn’t help us (or even harms us), then come back for another drink from the trough.
You might say that a private company wouldn’t have done any better. That’s a definite maybe; but if a private company got something wrong on this kind of scale, it wouldn’t stay solvent for long.
As to the “hostile environment” for NHS staff, that isn’t a new problem. Back in 2000, in the Blair era, I had to go to A&E (the only time so far, fortunately) late on a Sunday evening. At that time, there was a lot of concern about the plight of junior doctors. The (Indian) doctor, who eventually looked at me, seemed overjoyed – because I, the last patient before he went off shift at 2am, treated him as a human being, and was interested in him and what he did.
As to the WHO, no. In January, the WHO told us that there might be human to human transmission of the virus… then almost immediately contradicted that. Presumably, under pressure from the Chinese. The WHO is not to be trusted on anything. For decades now, they have been using “air pollution” as an excuse to try to force us all into compact, high-rise cities. The perfect spreading grounds for a virus like this one!
Neil – the problem with the NHS is lack of funding. Three hundred per person is not enough! In the States the private health care is much more expensive and millions go without cover.
No I don’t think running healthcare for profit is a good thing or provides a better cover. Look at the States!
There has always been a problem with racism in this country. The hostile environment (created by Brexit and the immigration hysteria whipped up by those with vested interests) created an horrendous problem. It drove out lots of key workers on a wave of xenophobia.
Yes the WHO did make a pig’s ear of this. They have done well on SARs, MERs, Ebola and Swine and Bird Flu but did not do well on this. It should have been contained just like the others. China lied and brought pressure to bear and they folded. Doesn’t help with morons like Trump withdrawing funding.
With Johnson the worst performer in Europe and Trump leading the world in fiasco, Bolsonaro not far behind, the right-wing populists have shown themselves to be utterly incompetent.
My point, Opher, was that Hunt got the NHS the funding, but the bureaucrats didn’t use it properly. That wasn’t £300 per head of general funding – it was funding for this specific purpose. Money thrown to bureaucrats is money wasted, or worse. At least, if you throw the money to a private company and they fail big time, the company goes bust, and you only lose the money once – instead of again and again.
And the racism issue goes way back before Brexit was even thought of. All the way back to the 1960s, and even before. Of course, there are always vested interests trying to push immigration policies one way or the other; but that’s what politics does. The whole idea of a centralized immigration “policy” makes no good sense to me.
You have to admit, though, that Johnson is a master of tactics. To get the virus himself… very clever, though would have been a major strategic fail if he had died of it. Now he has been able to excuse himself as “recuperating,” while the rest of them fiddled as Rome (slowly) burned. Having waited till the virus is beaten, he’ll come back and claim he was the one who solved the problem. (Cynical? Moi? 😉 )
Actually, I do think the virus (at least Phase 1 of it) is now just about beaten in this country. Although yesterday’s new case count was the second highest in the UK yet, the ratio of daily confirmed cases to daily tests has gone down in the last week or so from above 30% to below 10%. If other countries like Austria are any guide, that drop is the point where new cases really do start to fall away.
Neil – I would agree that every big organisation private or public wastes money and is inefficient in many ways. The NHS is no exception. But the NHS still gives incredible value for money. It has been starved of money and its workers very underpaid. I do not have any faith in any private organisation. All they do is cut corners in order to make more profit for themselves and their shareholders. They exploit and destroy. I prefer public non-profitmaking institutions.
Racism is a result of our petty tribalism. It is always there – fear of strangers – drive them away. But it waxes and wanes. We are (or were) getting a lot better. Mixing produces acceptance and tolerance,. Before Brexit I really felt we had turned a corner. Unfortunately populist politicians like Trump and Johnson use race as a simple way of rousing their followers, instilling fear of immigration and Muslim terrorism. They exaggerate threats and legitimise racism. There are issues and problems that need addressing but it is wise to keep them in proportion.
Johnson is a good tactician as well as being a complete bungling buffoon. He is a lazy, sloppy narcissist. Very self-serving. A lucky bastard too!
I hope you are right about the virus. There is a way to go yet I believe. The government were stupid, complacent and slow. They should have contained it. The WHO were too slack and slow.
As I keep saying – we need a far greater international global response. A world government would have sorted it at source without all this national stupidity, denial, complacency and ignorance. Time we move to a greater international approach – pollution, global warming, pandemics, crime, multinationals, money laundering, tax evasion, species extinction, and a host of other things are better dealt with globally.
Well, most NHS people I know are not so much underpaid, as frustrated at being expected to do lots of admin stuff instead of (or as well as) the front-line working with patients that they were trained to, and want to, do. I suppose we could both be right – the front-line staff are underpaid because the bureaucrats take the biggest cut.
But we’ll have to agree to disagree on the more general point of private versus “public.” Myself, I have no confidence at all in the state or in any state controlled institution; they always become politicized, and that is always bad. As to private companies, there are good ones run by real people, and bad ones run by what I call “the money men.” Of course, these days the latter are closely in cahoots with the political class, so there’s not much difference between the state and its cronies.
I’m not far away from you on the racism front; it’s utterly stupid. Though I will point out that, for me, Brexit is about getting away from the bureaucratic, unaccountable EU; not about anything to do with race. As to Johnson, your character sketch is not far off the mark! And yet, so far he’s been less bad than at least his last 5 predecessors in post. Go figure.
On your last bit, we’ll have to disagree again. You want more centralization and one-size-fits-all, less variety, everything more politicized. I want more individualization and variety, a more decentralized and distributed approach, less (and eventually no) power in the hands of the political class and their hangers-on. Imagine the mess there would have been if the EU bureaucracy had been in charge of the virus response! But the big difference between us is that you want to force your vision of the world on to others, even those who don’t want it. Whereas I want a framework in which each of us can pick our own ways, and as long was we don’t harm others we can live the way we want to. As far as I’m concerned, if you like socialism, you should be able to live in a socialist commune… as long as you don’t try to push your socialism on to those who don’t want it.
Neil – at the moment Big Business runs the world, chooses the politicians and is exploiting people and destroying nature – for profit.
The politicians either have to pander to them or are in cahoots.
Your idea of withdrawing into small enclaves results in them having carte blanche to pillage and destroy. They need controlling and the only thing that will control them is a global body that has the power to stop them destroying nature, to limit our population, to halt pollution, to stop this evasion of taxes, to put an end to poverty, illiteracy and exploitation and deal with the problems. Hiding away in little groups is like an ostrich burying its head.
Yes I would agree – there is the great danger that the sociopaths and psychopaths take over and politicise it. But there is no alternative.
I don’t want to indoctrinate anybody. That is what the religious community does. I want kids educated to think.
Socialism is about fairness. I want a more equal society not run by the wealthy for the wealthy.
I’m glad we at least agree on racism. That’s a start.