Back at the start of the first lockdown, all those aeons ago, a doctor gave me a piece of advice. “Don’t get ill, Allison,” he said.
“But I’m not really at risk from Covid, am I?”
“Forget about Covid,” he said, “Just don’t get ill from anything else for a year or two.”
I thought he was joking. I didn’t know. Well, I do now.
If you didn’t have the virus, good luck with getting hospital treatment. The plunge in the number of urgent referrals from primary care belies the outrageous, backside-covering claim by GPs’ leaders that all their members were fully available for patients. They so weren’t. Yet, as the fog of pandemic panic lifts and the scale of devastation becomes clear, the main thing is that no blame must attach to our sainted NHS. It’s the patients’ fault, you see.
I can guarantee I won’t have been the only one to react with spluttering disbelief to a story in this newspaper which began: “Cancer patients who decided not to seek treatment during lockdown are now overwhelming emergency units at hospitals across the country.”
Decided? What sort of decision would that be, then?
Presumably it went something like this: “I had this funny spot on my neck back in May last year and I sent a picture to my GP, like he asked me to. He said it was fine and prescribed me some steroid cream. It didn’t get any better, actually it got really nasty, but I decided not to have it seen. Well, actually, I couldn’t because no doctor would offer me a face-to-face appointment. Last week, I finally went to A&E, in despair because the spot was bulbous and bleeding, and they said I needed a scan. Turns out it’s melanoma and it’s spread everywhere. They say I can have palliative care. Which means I’m going to die, doesn’t it? Because I ‘decided’ not to seek treatment.”
Is this really the disingenuous, nothing-to-do-with-us-guv line that the NHS intends to take as tens of thousands of advanced cancers come to light? The Government requisitioned private hospitals at a cost of £2billion, but clueless NHS managers barely got their act together to use them for non-Covid patients. Many radiography and radiotherapy departments were off limits for 12 months but, apparently, it’s the British people who are at fault for overwhelming A&E today, with their wretched tumours and their annoying pain.
According to Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, this “striking” surge in non-Covid patients means some hospital trusts are already at 97 per cent capacity and may struggle to cope with a rise in virus cases if the full lifting of restrictions goes ahead on June 21. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is under mounting pressure from scientists to postpone Freedom Day because of the allegedly worrying advance of the Indian variant, with one respiratory consultant painting an apocalyptic picture of “mini Covid volcanoes erupting at hospitals around the country, which are threatening to explode”.
Here we go, all aboard the Excuses Roundabout. Because lockdown created a healthcare disaster, the NHS is in danger of not coping, so we need more lockdown to protect the NHS. Can anyone spot the flaw in this circular logic?
If we follow Mr Hopson’s reasoning, and that of sundry academics who are eagerly buying shares in a third wave, the Government should endlessly defer the lifting of lockdown. Just in case a few unvaccinated people who get sick with Covid need to go to hospital, which will be a problem, because the hospital will be nearly full with all the people who couldn’t get treated during the first lockdown. Have you got that, Marjorie?
One hesitates to use anything as crazy as reason or facts to counter this self-serving scaremongering, but here goes. The Indian variant may be more transmissible, but is no more lethal than its predecessors. Yesterday, there were zero Covid deaths in the UK, compared to a typical daily death toll from cancer of 450; tragically, that number will soon be much higher because of medical neglect during lockdown.
Hospital occupancy is perfectly normal for the time of year. Covid patients are taking up only one per cent of all beds, and that number continues its steady decline.
As for those “mini Covid volcanoes erupting at hospitals around the country”, in the so-called “hotspots”, numbers are still low. There have been minor increases in virus patients in Blackburn and Bedford hospitals in the past few days, but Bolton, previously the worst-affected, is starting to tick down. Those in the 35-to-44 age group make up the bulk of admissions and they don’t tend to get as sick. If it’s mainly young people who are now getting Covid, as the scientists shriek, that’s encouraging; they are far less at harm from the virus and will build up valuable immunity to protect any unvaccinated elders.
So there is no cause for concern, no sign of that Third Wave. There is certainly no reason for the PM to postpone the lifting of all restrictions on June 21.
What a devastating blow to national morale that would be. While fretting over rising “cases” (meaningless, unless accompanied by actual symptoms), some scientists have shown a horrifying disregard for the collateral damage to people’s health and well-being.
“We need to stop obsessing about June 21 and start worrying about where we are ‘now’ and how we can get cases down,” tweeted Professor Christina Pagel, a health research mathematician. On the contrary, Professor. You need to stop obsessing about phantasmal cases and start worrying about the real people who are going to die as a consequence of your beloved lockdown.
Here’s what Linda, who works in an oncology unit, wrote to me: “I work in PET/CT imaging. Before the pandemic, we’d get patients with newly diagnosed cancers and we’d scan to see how far the cancer had spread. Most were in the early stages. We’re now getting an increasing number of patients who were unable to access GP care and are presenting with advanced cancers. Some with moles that, with no face-to-face consultations, had been prescribed steroid creams and they’ve turned out to be melanomas. We also have people whose treatment was stopped during lockdown and we’re rescanning them before they resume treatments and their cancer has spread. This means more aggressive treatment with more side-effects. Unfortunately, frontline workers like me are afraid to speak out.”
While the NHS panjandrums fret about how to protect their service from its patients, while the scientists demand just a few more weeks/months/years of masks and social distancing, it’s people like Linda who are staring catastrophe in the face.
Yes, it’s true, there are mini-volcanoes erupting at hospitals around the country, but not because of Covid. From Orthopaedics to Oncology, there is a state of national emergency. I pray that Boris holds his nerve and lifts all restrictions on June 21. How much more evidence does it take? It’s lockdown that will be the death of us.
I am sick of protecting the NHS; let the NHS do its job and protect the sick.
Re: Covid19: Global reports, news and updates
Reply With Quote
WILLEM ENGEL WITH CHRIS SKY FROM CANADA The 2 leaders of the freedom movements from Canada & the Netherlands have there second high energy conversation;inspriring updates & hopefull perspectives! 
Bookmarks