I spent much of yesterday in Southmead Hospital. I was merely a visitor, a supportive family member (I hope) and what I saw reminded me just how wonderful the NHS is. When you arrive, the only things that are checked are things like your pulse, your blood pressure, that kind of thing, unlike in more backward countries – and I am talking about you, America – where the first check is always your wallet. Yes, you are disgracefully ripped off with parking charges, as indeed are the staff, and because of low staffing levels things don’t always come as quickly as you would like them to, but the point is this: it’s free at the point of delivery. Everyone who works there, from the magnificent doctors and nurses through to the equally magnificent porters, are there because this isn’t just a job, as it is for the parasites of private healthcare: it’s a vocation, a calling. And it’s truly, deeply and madly moving.
The staff have little time to kill, working insanely long hours, at full capacity, yet they always have time for a friendly word. They are the very best of us. They also work for a relative pittance.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who along with his wife is worth some £730 million, and Chancellor Jeremy C…Hunt, is worth a trifling £14 million, both say – and here I paraphrase – that NHS staff are very well paid and can whistle if they want any more money. I’m afraid that’s what we’re up against. Real lived experience, like we lived yesterday, tells you what we have and why we should properly invest in the service and its staff.
Maybe Sunak and co don’t like the NHS because it’s staffed by a lot of FOREIGN PEOPLE. We can’t be having FOREIGN PEOPLE, or their sons and daughters, working in OUR NHS. Sunak, the son of immigrants, must think that, along with his colleagues Nadhim Zahawi, Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel and Cruella Braverman who of course wouldn’t be here but for…er…immigration. I suppose they think they’re far more important than actual NHS workers.
Anyone with a heart and at least half a brain will be appalled to see the least militant and most loved people in the land being driven to claim benefits and use food banks and to then see out-of-touch politicians who could never possibly understand how they live their lives giving them the middle finger. We all know how this ends, which is a do or die struggle to save the NHS and build it up to how it was when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were in power. You know, with thousand of new doctors and nurses and the lowest ever waiting times and waiting lists. This shouldn’t be about politics, should it, but after 12 years of Conservative neglect, our health service is reaching an existential crisis. Sunak loves America so much, he kept his green card for far longer than he needed to and indeed still owns a pile in Los Angeles. It would be naive, indeed, to suggest he wouldn’t fancy some American involvement in our NHS. We mustn’t let him.
Our experience yesterday was better than good. It was fantastic. Yes, we’ve all paid for this by way of our taxes but I can’t think of a better way for my taxes to be spent. I’m very, very tired after a long day of sitting down waiting for news so Christ alone knows how the NHS staff are feeling after working days that literally run into other days. Some things are are worth saving, none more so than the NHS.
