Three more NHS nurses have lost their lives after being tested positive for COVID-19. In total, at least thirty members of the NHS have sadly succumbed to this virus. These deaths are not just due to covid-19 but caused by savage Tory cuts and ongoing non-availability of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). These unfortunate deaths could have been prevented if the right PPE had been supplied to the front line NHS staff when they needed it. Business secretary Alok Sharma refuses to apologize but admits that even though millions of PPE have been supplied to the NHS, they need to be doing even more.
Even after the death toll surpassed ten thousand, we have a party in power who are in complete denial of their inactions and what they have done to the health service in the past.
The issue surrounding the PPE is in such a dire state, that the Royal College of Nursing has advised members to refuse to treat patients if they are not supplied with adequate personal protective equipment. Lack of investment and quick actions had put lots of lives in danger.
This pandemic has brought out to the masses what forced austerity or savage cuts to public services can do. If our frontline NHS staff are going to die due to lack of PPE then the question we should all ask is, whose interests is this current government trying to fulfil? When a government ignores the advice of the World Health organisation in following the pattern of flattening the curve and instead adapts the disastrous herd immunity tactic, the penny should have dropped with regards to whom this government is set to serve.
To sum up the UK’s disastrous and callous decision to follow the herd immunity tactic, its initial lax approach to social distancing measures and the shortage of PPE can only mean we could be the worst affected country in Europe to be affected by this deadly virus. This means so many deaths- deaths that could have been otherwise prevented.
Death of many key workers is totally unnecessary. They are preventable. This is mass murder by the mad government policy of not putting people’s lives first. The Tory government must take the blame for killing these heroic workers.
We demand that the government take over key factories to mass-produce and supply PPE immediately.
Special Investment and care must be taken to protect the health workers immediately – including making the availability of regular Testing for Covid-19.
All key workers, including supermarket workers, must be provided with adequate PPE immediately.
Image credits: getty images, Financial Times
