A crisis has become a catastrophe due to a lack of NHS funding

For those who continue to say “they are doing their best” and “what else could they do?” they only need to examine the evidence; the failure to respond to an exercise in October 2016, which showed how poorly prepared the UK were for a virus attack, and the report in 2018 which said that the lessons had not been learnt and the UK was still disastrously underprepared for a medical emergency.

As a result, the UK – which, as an island, should be better able to cope with a pandemic – is likely to have the worst figures for infections and deaths in Europe.

We could say that the failure to take advice from experts was just a error of judgement, but it is reported that the early response of the government was to let the people become infected and take the consequences. After all, we are “British and have the bulldog spirit” – as if there was a chance that this spirit would provide adequate protection against an infectious disease.

We could say that any earlier action would result in a panic, but perhaps, in the light of people not following advice in the early weeks of the epidemic, an element of panic would not have been a bad thing.

Years of underfunding our NHS has resulted in a crisis becoming a catastrophe. We are now seeing the London government trying to pass on the responsibility for failure from themselves to the health workers. Matt Hancock giving a speech about personal protective equipment being a precious resource which should not be wasted – rather than ensuring that we quickly made up for the shortages, which were known since 2016 – is the first of this type of response. I for one will not forget their inadequacies, nor will I forget those who have died unnecessarily as a result of their performance

Pete Rowberry
Duns

THE UK’s health services depend heavily on our very able foreign doctors and nurses. Sad to say that eight of these frontline life-saving doctors and 11 nurses have died after contacting coronavirus, mostly in hospitals in the south of England.

Senior doctor Abdul Chowdhury, aged 53, died a matter of days after warning PM Boris Johnson doctors were being put in danger by treating coronavirus patients without the proper personal protective equipment. This did not stop him from treating patients in his care!

The UK Government had three months to get their act together to provide adequate protection to doctors, nurses, hospital staff and carers but failed miserably to do so, resulting in them being terrified of going to work for fear of catching the deadly virus and passing it on to their families.

Donald Morrison
Benbecula

AND so it begins. The Social Market Foundation (a Tory/New Labour/LibDem think tank) launches the first salvo in an attack on the incomes of the poorest in society to pay for the coronanvirus pandemic, by attacking the triple lock protecting those receiving the state pension.

These people unbelievably seem to think that £175.20p a week (new state pension) or £134.25 a week (old state pension – why is this not being challenged?) is too much and pensioners should shoulder the burden and in the process try and sow the seeds of intergenerational grievance which would allow the Tories and their fellow travellers in NewNew Labour to go after the rest of the poorest in society.

As both George Kerevan and Kevin McKenna have eloquently pointed out in The National this week, the capitalists are gearing up to make sure the poorest will pay and they will reap the huge profits and dividends as a result.

And make no mistake, the NHS is being lined up, amid all the duplicitous love-bombing by the Tories, to be charitised and privatised to within an inch of its life.

Until such times as Scotland is independent, the Scottish Government must resist this attack on the poorest in society and our NHS with as much effort as it can possibly muster.

Andrew Welsh
Rutherglen

BEATS me that a Brexit Cabinet of government designed to reboot the UK on a right-wing agenda to protect – indeed, extend – the privileges of the already privileged could ever run a crisis in the interests of every citizen.

This might account for the reckless behaviour of senior politicians in said Cabinet, resulting in them catching virus at a relatively early stage of its development in the UK when staff would be most likely to be available to care for them – Johnson seen shaking hands willy-nilly around hospitals and Hancock, yes, the Health Secretary, returning to work after a short recovery period then seen not displaying the most hygienic behaviour in presence of others.

Now we have the truth revealing the gross overstatement of facts, with more and more jam tomorrow as health and care workers take their life in their hands in the dedication of their humanity toward the wellbeing of others. Makes you wonder if this massive challenge by the whole population has been hijacked and will turn out to be just another opportunity grasped to steer the UK toward the desired goal of this charlatan government.

Tom Gray
Braco

FOLLOWING Johnson’s near-death experience, any hopes of a policy rethink from this totally inadequate Conservative administration were absolutely dashed in the almost hidden announcement that HS2 construction was to begin immediately. PLUS CA CHANGE!

David Watson
via email

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