NHS staff aren’t soldiers in a war – stop saying they are
If we’re in a war against the Covid-19 pandemic – and that is how our politicians would like us to see it – then guess who the troops are?
You got it: it’s the NHS staff on the “front line”, another wartime word which is being used a lot right now and which helps to further foster this grimly inappropriate narrative.
Unless you’re a slavish adherent of the Boris Johnson cult that thinks we should be trumpeting “good news” (in other words government propaganda) and cooing over his 48th child, or whatever the number is, you should be able to see the problem with that.
This is not a war and the doctors, nurses, paramedics and support staff, who are exposing themselves daily to a virus that is perfectly capable of killing, and that can muck up your body for weeks on end if it doesn’t, aren’t service personnel.
But it sure suits the current government to have people thinking about them in those terms and for the most cynical of reasons.
The public is aware that warfare, and I include the deployment of troops for humanitarian purposes in conflict zones in that definition, puts combatants at risk of not coming back.
That means service personnel, and it holds even if they’re supplied with the requisite support and the best possible equipment (that this doesn’t always happen is a separate scandal).
Characterising the pandemic as a war helps politicians to nudge the public into thinking of NHS workers in the same category. If they then succumb to Covid-19 through the course of their duties, as a number already have, their deaths become more acceptable.
They are considered as members of the “fallen”, their passing a regrettable consequence of the heroic struggle. So no need to ask ministers questions about protective equipment, testing, staff shortages, I could go on. And on. And on.
The deaths that have resulted were not an unavoidable consequence of war, some of them could have been prevented by better decision-making
We’ve seen some commentators on the right actively attacking the government’s fiercer critics for their “negativity”, while urging us instead to celebrate the NHS’s contribution.
It’s an offensive exercise in bullshit by government shills designed to help absolve it of the blame for failing to prepare the UK for the pandemic, as well as for running down the NHS during the austerity years and for neglecting to facilitate its workers with the kit that they need.
Another concern I have about what’s going on is the stiff upper lip and the “keep calm and carry on” gimmick. That’s not at all helpful when you’ve been making life and death decisions for 12 hours a day, particularly when the monsters come at night. How do the people who’ve been doing that keep calm? Talking with trained counsellors will help them a lot more than people’s cheers.
I know, I know. People want to show their appreciation. NHS staff, carers and everyone else who has stepped up during this crisis surely deserve a cheer. But they need more than that.
They need the sort of support that’s currently in desperately short supply, and if we want to show our appreciation, we need to pay for it through our taxes because it doesn’t come cheap.
Right now, you’re lucky to get six sessions with a therapist after months of waiting, and that isn’t going to cut it. Not even close. So it’s time to put the wartime rhetoric away.
The coronavirus is a public health crisis, arguably one that could and should have been foreseen.
It is one Britain was ill-prepared for and during which its politicians have made some fatal mistakes that they should own up to and apologise for at the very least.
The deaths that have resulted were not an unavoidable consequence of war, some of them could have been prevented by better decision-making. Those in charge of that should be held to account.