Health service workers have given so much, but there will be a reckoning

• NHS staff are employed on our behalf to protect our health. Recent events have led to them being likened to soldiers fighting a war on our behalf.

They are battling to save our lives; but not in any sense did they “sign up” for what they are required to “do or die”. They could not have envisaged the extreme workloads, or extreme risks to their lives.

A soldier “signs up” knowing that they will be put in danger with possible loss of life. Even a cook or doctor in the army knows this is expected of them.

They also assume that they will be provided with the means to survive these dangers and are provided with clothing, equipment, vehicles and taken to safety when injured. When injured or killed they are given financial support and pensions.

Our NHS staff were “volunteered” by the state (on our behalf) to take on Covid-19; no new contracts, no adequate PPE; no financial support if “injured” or killed in a war not of their making.

This Covid war is partially of the making of “our” state and “us” wishing to continue to have our “cake and eat it”.

When Covid reduces its pressure on the health service all the demands pent up by Covid will be unleashed on an exhausted, demoralised and traumatised service having witnessed so much death and subjected to death-defying demands made by “us”.

However I am sure that such a competent and compassionate leader as Boris Johnson, with his sense of just and good governance, will see that no NHS family will suffer because of death or “injury” to a loved one.

FRANK DRAKE
Falkland Road, NW5