Coronavirus catastrophe in Britain

This 13 April 2020 video from Britain says about itself:

Care providers in the United Kingdom are urging the government to roll out regular widespread testing for staff, residents and new intakes from hospitals as fears rise over the number of possible deaths in nursing homes from COVID-19.

Deaths from the virus in nursing homes are not counted in the daily figures and there are fears that a thousand residents may have died and gone uncounted.

7,500 feared to have died of coronavirus in UK care homes. Care England data suggests fatalities are five times higher than official figures show: here.

By Symon Hill in Britain, Friday, April 17, 2020:

Why waste money on bombs and bullets when ventilators are what’s needed?

SYMON HILL invites readers to join the Peace Pledge Union’s call for military budgets to be reallocated to tackling Covid-19

WHAT’S the difference between a ventilator and a fighter jet? Britain doesn’t have a shortage of fighter jets.

In recent years, British ministers have spent billions of pounds of public money on 48 F35 fighter jets.

They will not make us any safer. Like all weapons, they contribute to making the world less safe.

The photo shows two actors wearing then Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (right) and Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron masks breaking a heart, with the words NHS printed on it, during a protest by Unison trade union members against the Health and Social Care Bill, at the gates of Downing Street in London in February 2012.

By Jon Tait in Britain, 17 April 2020:

When you clap on your doorstep for the NHS, please remember the Tories’ decade of cuts

JON TAIT’s wife was a nurse for 22 years and feels the pressure to go back – but, without adequate PPE thanks to chronic underfunding, it’s a dangerous step to take

I KNEW when I married a nurse that she was as committed to the NHS and her patients as she was to me.

All of us that have partners who work in the National Health Service are familiar with the long shifts, the emotional drain, the scrutiny and mental pressure that they work under every day.

I was a construction worker when I met my wife, who was then just starting on the old four-year degree as a student.

By Solomon Hughes in Britain, 17 April 2020:

£276,000 a year for chairing ISS – the company that wouldn’t pay its NHS cleaners on time

SOLOMON HUGHES introduces a Miliband-era Labour lord who’s doing very well for himself out of NHS privatisation

ONE of the biggest privatisation firms with their hooks into the NHS is led by a Labour lord who was given a top party role by Ed Miliband in 2011, and then put into the Lords.

Charles Allen — or Lord Allen of Kensington, as he is known thanks to Miliband’s Labour putting him in the upper house in 2013 — is the chairman of cleaning and catering corporation ISS.

By Lamiat Sabin in Britain, Friday, April 17, 2020:

PPE might not last the weekend

MPs react with shock as Health Secretary refuses to guarantee vital equipment will be on the front line

HEALTH Secretary Matt Hancock today repeatedly refused to guarantee that NHS and social care staff would have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) this weekend.

Mr Hancock was grilled online by MPs, including his predecessor Jeremy Hunt, as part of the Commons health committee’s scrutiny of the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Committee chairman Mr Hunt had a controversial tenure as health secretary, overseeing underfunding and part-privatisation of the NHS, as well as two junior doctors’ strikes in one week.

By Bethany Rielly in Britain, 17 April 2020:

Socialist Labour MPs call for government to safeguard migrants through pandemic

THE government has failed to take “decisive action” to support migrants despite many risking their health as key workers, socialist Labour MPs have charged.

In a letter to the Home Office, four MPs from the Socialist Campaign Group called on the government to take urgent steps to safeguard and protect the health of migrants during and after the coronavirus crisis.

It follows multiple warnings from campaigners that immigration enforcement is still being prioritised over public health.

The letter, penned by Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe and Poplar and Limehouse MP Apsana Begum, calls for a number of measures including the closure of detention centres.

Although hundreds of detainees have been released in recent weeks, detention centres remain open, with officials even moving in new people.

This is despite a number of centres already having confirmed and suspected cases of Covid-19.

The MPs also called for immigration healthcare surcharges to be scrapped, condemning the financial barrier as “inhumane”, as well as ending “no recourse to public funds” conditions which prevent migrants accessing benefits.

Ms Ribeiro-Addy said: “It’s needlessly cruel to leave migrants in a position where they can’t meet their basic needs at the best of times.

“During a global pandemic it’s also a serious public health issue.”

The MPs also called for all undocumented migrants to be given an amnesty and said NHS workers should be granted indefinite leave to remain.

Recent government plans to extend visas for NHS workers was “not enough”, they added.

“Those fighting the virus for British residents should have the same rights as British residents,” the letter reads.

From daily News Line in Britain, 18 April 2020:

UNITE national officer for health Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe said yesterday that ‘Pressures on our ambulance members are unprecedented, with the profession not currently being given the correct guidance as to whom they should take to hospital.

‘They are also not being given the correct level of personal protective equipment (PPE) if they suspect a patient has Covid-19.

‘Ambulance workers are putting their health, perhaps their lives, at risk, by not receiving the correct PPE and also by not receiving the correct fit test training to wear the PPE.

‘On top of this, the lack of testing remains a stark and very serious issue – there are not enough tests to ensure ambulance staff are tested within the five-day window for testing.

‘Unite is urgently calling for ambulance workers to be given clear guidance regarding triaging which patients should be taken to hospital, and more action on PPE which needs to be supplied to paramedics, so they are able to do their essential duties.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Friday, April 17, 2020

Captain Tom Moore to keep walking to raise money for NHS

CAPTAIN Tom Moore will keep walking laps of his garden for as long as people are donating to his NHS fundraising appeal, his daughter said today.

The appeal was close to topping £20 million this evening.

The 99-year-old second-world-war veteran set out to walk 100 laps of his garden in Bedfordshire before his 100th birthday on April 30.

By Bethany Rielly in Britain, 17 April 2020:

Rules allowing corporations to gorge on profits as workers struggle can’t go on in a post-coronavirus world

Research by left-wing think tank Common Wealth reveals Britain’s biggest firms paid out £400 billion in dividends between 2011 and 2018