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Johnson is back at work and one of the first things he did was make a statement outside of No 10.
Of course any leader is going to try to talk up their decisions and actions, but I think Johnson’s statement was right out of the realms of fantasy.
“ look at our apparent success”.
Let’s remind ourselves of the “apparent success”
At the moment deaths in hospitals are in excess of 20000, and will continue to increase.
Care home deaths were not even considered worth recording during the initial weeks, and we still have no accurate figures.
The 20k alone is how many civilians were killed in WW11.
As many are stating
“If that is success, I would hate to see what Johnson’s considers a failure”
The world is looking at the U.K. in horror and we are rapidly becoming the role model as to how not to handle a pandemic.
This is a government who neglected to provide sufficient PPE for all clinicians and care workers.
It took no notice of the success of those countries whose test, track and test methods succeeded in absolutely keeping a lid on the virus, or at least keeping it under firm control.
This is a government who simply refused to take the pandemic seriously at the start, the consequence of which we are seeing with the death toll.
Johnson honeymoon period will be over in days.
Judgement day is fast coming down the track.
I can think of many questions that need answering and that is just over covid. But there are many more that will need looking at and answered.
Some of this post can be attributed to John Crace
I would also like to put in a request that the daily press briefing
Is placed somewhere above primary school level.
What on earth does that ridiculous comment mean?
2000 deaths in one week in care homes
Well said Shelmiss! Primary school level? What an idiotic comment!
shelmiss you know the answer
Oh good grief this is getting boring now WWM2. If Boris Johnson had managed to single handedly eradicate Covid- 19 you’d still be moaning and groaning about him and the Tory party ?
I would also like to put in a request that the daily press briefing
Is placed somewhere above primary school level.
callistone that’s exactly what the government should be doing!!
It's alright, Callistomen. I realise that the government is completely blameless in all of this utter fiasco.. I must have been imagining all the evidence that is stacking up against them...
So they are supposed to keep sufficient in-date stock in storage to be sufficient for a once in many years pandemic occurring at some nonspecific time in the future.
Well, of course they should. It's good stock control. It's not as though they were keeping stuff that isn't used normally; they could issue the older stuff and then replace with new. If it went out of date without being called for then they would have to dump it and replace. What is more important? A few £million down the drain or the health of the nation?
Although some was past the date, it was stringently tested and found to be fit for purpose.
Have you a reference for that, Cal? Did this 'testing' happen while the out of date stock was still in store or has it been carried out since the stock has been issued?
It just seems odd that it should be tolerated; the place where I volunteer has to replace all outdated stuff in the 1st Aid boxes as a Health & Safety requirement. You'd have thought that it would be an even more stringent requirement in hospitals.
GN
No-one would ever blame the medical staff MaizieD. I have not seen one person on FN who has done that, so what you say is is simply untrue.
They are the ones being applauded, not the unwieldy tiers of management, who are very often criticised by the medical staff themselves.
The Government should have prepared for this pandemic it was predicted years ago
some of the stock shown on Panorama was 4 years out of date
So they are supposed to keep sufficient in-date stock in storage to be sufficient for a once in many years pandemic occurring at some nonspecific time in the future. Has this always been the case?
Although some was past the date, it was stringently tested and found to be fit for purpose.
Funnily enough I've just listened to James O'Brien's piece on the PPE scandal (link helpfully posted by Grany on another thread). He suggests that despite the current 'clap for carers' and ;aren't they utter heroes' stuff that is being said today, it is likely that the NHS could ultimately be blamed for the crisis so as to deflect blame from the government..
He must have been reading Gransnet...
Oh yes I would sack Cummings and start to run the country myself. I would also look very carefully into the £250 million NHS contract awarded to Warner’s brother - a friend of Cummings without tender.
EllanVannin is years behind the times with what happens nowadays as am I.
I last Nursed on the wards in 2002,prior to that I did an in depth University Return to Nursing course,oh how things had changed over the years!
Hospitals are run completely differently to how they were 40 or 50years ago.We cannot compare to how we did it then,it is not helpful.
Of course it was up to the Government to have been prepared for this Pandemic,it was predicted YEARS ago!! Everything should have been in place,not dithering about,they are still letting flights arrive with no checks done on incoming passengers!
They couldn’t even decide when to start lockdown,yet they would have had all this information at hand.
A friend of mine is a Retired Army Doctor,who sat on the COVID committee for the Ebola crisis,he assured us that if we had an outbreak it would be handled promptly and efficiently,the way it was in Nigeria,they prevented a mass outbreak from the way the first patient was treated.
Sorry but the blame for the mishandling of this crisis lays firmly at the Government door.
Exactly Callistemon! Having a dog and barking yourself comes to mind! No doubt we shall be told by those clearly in the know, that after 4 months in office, it's totally this governments fault, Boris's in particular, and that the extremely well paid hospital managers and experts are there just to?!!!! I'm sure someone can enlighten!
ginny
I would not have ignored the advise in 2017 to ensure sufficient stock was being held in case of a pandemic
I would not have ignored the strong advise by my scientists to close down in February.
I would not have foolishly gone around shaking hands against advise resulting in me catching the virus
I would have looked at how other countries have successfully dealt with the issue like NZ, Germany SK etc.
I would not have been prepared to watch as the elderly remained sitting ducks in their care home, and when they got sick could not offer them a test to see if indeed they had the virus
I would not have been prepared to watch so many elderly die without hospitalisation. One almost wonders if dying in a care home, meant that hospitals would not be overwhelmed.
I would have ensured that the deaths of the elderly meant something and not ignored for the first few weeks of the crises, until people began to complain.
I would not have lied over the level of PPE was in stock to be found out later.
When ministers attend TV interviews, I would insist that they actually knew what they were talking about.
I would have ensured that SAGE was absolutely independent as I claimed and had the appropriate personnel. Neither which is now true.
I would have tested, tested, tested then traced,traced,traced, then tested some more.
I can go on. But you get the drift ginny?
I don’t know about health boards but I worked in hospitals and I have a very low opinion of management at that level. However incompetent they were only promoted sideways as sacking was deemed to send “the wrong message”
Lets blame the NHS for lack of PPE - but who do we blame for lack of funding for the NHS?
We all know in January St Boris was far too busy getting everyone to chant and getting Big Ben to Bong for Brexit, plus announcing his latest girlfriend was up the duff to take any firm decisions or take any notice of a potential pandemic. but his supporters don't care - Boris knows they don't care and he doesn't care that we know he doesn't care.....
Why do we have NHS Managers if they are useless at managing? Do we wish Westminster to micro-manage every aspect of our lives or should the 'experts' employed by the NHS make appropriate decisions?
Is the Government supposed to tell them what to do step by step, or are they supposed to allocate funds, decide on procedures, as appropriate?
When they anticipate an outbreak of winter flu they act accordingly but seem to have completely had a sense by-pass with COVID19.
A particular Health Board in Wales has been worse hit than others and I have heard several tales of completely inadequate management - the Government allocates funds to the Welsh Labour government and they waste it as they consider appropriate. They then allocate funds to the Welsh Health Boards.
The utter waste of money would have paid for urgently needed PPE kit.
Interesting post, EllanVannin.
And on it goes!!!!!
This government is getting more Trumpian by the day.
Anything that is reported that is critical of the government results in either ministers refusing to attend interviews like Today on radio 4 which was ostracised for months, now its The Times and watch it will soon be the guardian and observer as they are just reporting that they have refused to alter a report at the governments request. The report is about research that shows trust in the government is plummeting.
Good post EV.
I wish those who can do nothing but blame would actually tell us all exactly what they would /would have done.
Nothing easier than sitting back and doing nothing.
Ellan Vanin's post is absolute nonsense as far as hospital procurement is concerned.
Well said EV. Hope you have your helmet and flack jacket to hand!?? ?
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