Those with other illnesses need help too
This is the second time we have had to disguise the identity – and voice – of a guest.
Doctors and nurses who speak out to inform us about problems in the NHS can expect retaliatory action, even though it’s the public that pays their wages.
When Clare, a London GP, emailed Planet Normal, it was a real cry from the heart.
“I can’t tell you how distressing my work has become,” she wrote, “such that I finish most days in tears.”
Clare said that, since lockdown, her job has become virtually impossible. She is unable to get hospital tests, appointments
or treatments for her patients.
“What services there are are telephone and many of these get cancelled. Patients are told to go back to their GP. But we cannot do cancer treatments and operations!”
Many Telegraph readers have complained bitterly about GP surgeries turning into Fort Knox. Clare shares their frustration while offering a more nuanced perspective.
Many GPS like her have been working flat out. It is secondary care – hospitals – that turned into “the National Covid Service”.
Because clubs and day care facilities are
closed, the elderly man whose wife has dementia has no respite. Neither does the new mum with a baby who can’t be visited, not even by her own parents. Clare says she would love to have Boris and Matt Hancock sit in with her at the surgery to witness the extraordinary distress of ordinary people.
She begs for a “more balanced approach” that gives equal weight to illnesses besides Covid.
What a privilege to hear from such a compassionate, thoughtful woman.
And how shocking it is that Clare is thinking of quitting the job she loved for 30 years.