NHS: Britain's Corona Tragedy

The UK health system (NHS) has been weakened by years of savings. Now the revenge is bitter in the Corona crisis. The pandemic is threatening to worsen there dramatically

At a drive-in of the NHS, employees with a lot of human contact are tested on Covid-19 imago images / Vedat Xhymshiti

Sometimes the full extent of a tragedy of little things is revealed. For example, if an online retailer for fetishists is donating medical protective clothing to a British hospital these days. Even if it was just a few sets of disposable gowns, every gift counts in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Especially with the state health service NHS.

However, the donation went hand in hand with the anger of the dealer: "If someone from the government says that the NHS gets everything he needs, it's a LIE," tweeted MedFetUK. Desperate employees of the NHS asked them. If a tiny company had to help the state health service in the crisis, it would show that something was seriously wrong. "It's actually scandalous."

Many Britons are now beginning to realize that something is wrong - and that the coronavirus is already overwhelming the NHS. The death toll rose to almost 1,800, with more than 25,000 people tested positive for the virus in the UK by Tuesday evening. The fact that this number is still relatively low is probably due to one fact: there are hardly any tests. Already three weeks ago, the government promised to test around 10,000 times a day - which it has so far failed to do. For comparison: There are around 70,000 tests in Germany every day.

If the pandemic hits Britain with full force, it will encounter a health system that has been battered after years of savings. Even before Brexit, the NHS lacked around 100,000 nurses and doctors, and a number of EU foreigners are likely to have left the country by now.

The crisis is also exacerbated by the fact that a large part of the medical staff has become infected. As the medical organization Royal College of Physicians announced, every fourth medical doctor at the NHS is now “sick or in isolation”. The sickness rate among nurses and doctors is “30 percent, 40 percent and in some places even 50 percent,” NHS representative Chris Hopson told the BBC last week. This extent is "unprecedented".

In the meantime, around 20,000 former NHS employees have agreed to help out in the crisis. The government is also recruiting flight attendants who are currently unemployed. But it is doubtful whether stewardesses can even alleviate the hardship in the slightest.

Letter to the Prime Minister: "It is time to act"
In addition, the equipment in many clinics, medical practices and nursing homes is desolate. In the meantime, nurses and doctors have turned to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as the "Times" reports. “Patients die, healthcare workers die. It's time to act, ”says the brand letter, which was signed more than 20,000 times within 36 hours. To avoid new infections, the signatories urge Johnson to ensure that medical personnel are properly protected. The government has so far insisted that there is sufficient protective equipment.

At the same time, medical personnel who denounce the desperate situation are being put under massive pressure. The Times quotes the chair of the British Medical Association, Rinesh Parmar, who is currently receiving numerous concerned emails. In these, people complained that "they are told that if they post on social media they will lose their jobs". It feels like all these worries "fall on deaf ears".