Across the world there is a huge opportunity to grab the pandemic embrace it and move health to the top of the agenda.
Fighting the pandemic is clearly top of the agenda and I'm advocating embracing it. At the end of these coming 18 months we should have 3 times the nursing capacity that we currently have. We should have created new pathways in education within the health sector that encourages people to train at any age to be more effective in their role, or to offer development.
The current education pathway for doctors in the UK worked well until 90 hour weeks were banned and can continue to do so but it needs to evolve so we aren't just thieving from other countries. It wont be long before that exploitation loop hole closes and the idea that hospital managers need to get more creative is nonsense. Many weren't very creative before and being opportunistic isn't creative, its opportunistic. The way sterling is plummeting as we career towards a no deal brexit and the final twist in the USA's war of independence looms large.
We are very close to becoming an overseas territory of the USA. It does not take many people to do it and for the NHS see the examples of Manchester United and Liverpool. They are no longer part of their communities and it wont be long until they are no longer part of their cities. Within 50 years, as with sport in the USA, these teams will represent a franchise which can then be bought, especially if they successfully create a super league. The USA will enjoy grinding a post brexit smug UK into the dust, they'll love it, 250 years after independence, they will, in 2026, have destroyed us. Think rust belt states!
Back to the health scene though. Across the globe we are all living longer and therefore we need more people in the 70's and shortly 80's to have a meaningful role in society. These people have lived and their experience is of real value, its a resource we should exploit to mutual benefit. Covid has seen many retirees return to work and sadly many have died in their efforts.
This is why lockdowns have been required, our nursing capacity is limited and in case you didn't notice, nursing staff died looking after patients, thus leaving the nursing community short of even more staff, including those so dedicated to their job they came out of retirement to help. I tried to apply for a care home job but realised I wasn't skilled enough to earn £9.50 an hour, that's wrong on too many levels.
If we are to do the right thing by them and ourselves it is to build an NHS and work with the WHO to build the world's health infrastructure.
I do get it that people in the frontline are going to find it difficult to come out of intensive care to sit in a meeting about how to increase the pool of talent but it needn't stop there being parralel tracks. There's a huge pool of talent talking in chat rooms about covid this and that, most of it negative pissin' in the wind stuff with the statistical analysis that makes marketing people proud of saying almost 100% of people loved this product when only 9, out the 10 people approached, replied "yes, if given a pint free I woud say I loved it."
Community clubs can harness some of this. Whether its a sports club like your local football team, golf or tennis club we all have academies and pathways. All I would ask is that everyone be given a parallel pathway.
If I could dream for a moment, I would see the Hibs development squad staying back to discuss their parallel pathway, I would see Scottish Golf Clubs discussing with "getting kids into golf", what else they might do.
I grew up in a generation when paramilitary groups would meet at local church halls in their uniforms and do a sewing badge, first aid badge, or even how to tie a knot badge. We collected a lot of badges back in the days when football cards came with cigarettes.
I'm suggesting we learn a bit from our history and instead of increased isolation that we learn to pool our resources, pull the strands of our society to see if we have a society or indeed we are now 20 million sub societies floating like droplets bouncing into each other from time to time. The spread of the civd virus suggests we do bump into more people than we realise, that our lives are inexplicably linked even when we try to live them in isolation, pre or post lockdown.
Our communities thrive with common purpose, that's down the allotment or walking the Camino de Santiago My twin site fatal-bananas has all the nonsense that seems so real on the camino where you find yourself thriving physically and emotionally in a community that is so uplifting. Its not from the past or from the future, whats beautiful about the camino is its in the moment.
I've seen many community initiatives like the one where common space is given over to food production. What could be simpler than having a productive garden outside a hospital or council building, and it fills me up to know that people are still bashing on and making a difference. They are going through doors that are open.
Brilliant practical minds lead to wonderfully productive solutions and lets' hope the opportunity the Pandemic has created to rejuvenate our approach to health isn't remembered for no wage rises for nurses, lockdowns that stuttered to a civil disobedient halt and the confused cray bungling Boris and the parlous public representatives. I've argued before they need a rest because they are clearly disappearing down the rabbit hole in their thinking. They have asked the health professionals questions about the current state of the heath system and the pandemic, they need to ask what steps we need now for 5-10 years as well. They need to ask what can the public do to help, not just stay home.
We need the idle masses to contribute, we need to see the brilliant simple solutions in action. We need to know how to become a key worker even if its just how to volunteer at a food bank or to move food from an allotment to a tattie collection point.
As a society we want our people to thrive so please....... Gizza joab!
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