A load of Turkish irony
Turkey joining the EU wasn’t a scare tactic used to promote Brexit, was it?
No, I didn’t think it was. That would lend itself too easily to satire, when an RAF plane loaded with personal protective equipment from Turkey has been failing to reach the UK on a daily basis for half of the past week.
Another eventful day in the level 1 Covid-19 zone. Inconsistencies in social distancing by workplace colleagues have been matched in dark entertainment value by the sheer variety of ways in which PPE has been repurposed. A hard-earned al fresco lunch break in the lockdown-special spring sunshine, sandwiches clutched in gloved hands. A used FFP3 respirator mask safely stored on a colleague’s work-desk, nestled between clinic letters and his coffee mug. Fluid resistant surgical masks warming one’s chin, or dangling a new trend in ear wear. You could be excused for thinking - aha! this must be what the health secretary meant by suggesting the NHS should use PPE appropriately, yes?
The truth of this matter is embarrassing, and it is not healthcare staff that it casts in a poor light. Every one of these workers is clinging on to their PPE because there isn’t enough to go around. The porter opening the ward doors in her gloved hands; the nurse finally managing to grab a cup of tea, his mask lining the palm in which he rests his chin; the medical student bustling about the entire so-called-green ward area all day in the same skimpy plastic apron. Each one of them dares not dispose of their mask, glove or apron. There isn’t enough to go around. There might be no gloves or gowns available in an emergency to resuscitate a patient. Extraordinarily, some managers have even told staff there is a strict limit on how many pieces they are allowed during one shift.
This is a lose-lose situation. The paucity of PPE is causing healthcare staff to keep wearing the same items in a way that does more harm than good. Thus, the porter heads down the stairs, burnishing the banisters with a variety of bugs, coronavirus included, from her gloves. The nurse smears his own face with all manner of organisms trapped on the mask he has continued sort-of-wearing as he sips his now lukewarm tea. The student’s apron makes sure that the covid-positive patients who are invariably present on the “green-zone” wards - because we still are not testing comprehensively - have every chance of sharing their infection with those yet to contract it. The only thing gained from this desperate use of undersupplied PPE is a misplaced sense of false security. In reality, this manner of make-do usage protects neither carers nor the community.
The ironic grain of truth in the health secretary’s scurrilous insinuation is that health workers are struggling to use PPE appropriately, as in, safely. We cannot retain the same items of PPE across multiple patient interactions; such usage will cross-infect our patients and fail to protect us. A reliable and adequate supply of personal protective equipment for healthcare staff is an inarguable necessity; providing it is a responsibility the government cannot wash their hands of.