Last week, Tobias Ellwood, chair of the House of Commons defence select committee, took the language of war to new, literal heights with the suggestion that the Red Arrows and other military aircraft should raise the nation’s morale by performing metropolitan flypasts during “clap for carers” on Thursday evenings.
As an NHS doctor married to a former Royal Air Force fighter pilot, I know precisely how eloquent and moving a ceremonial flight can be... but doctors, nurses and carers are not typically members of the armed forces. We signed up to save lives – not, if necessary, to kill. And the increasingly bombastic proposals for honouring our “sacrifice” are beginning to feel more burdensome than uplifting.
Alongside last week’s minute of silence to remember the frontline staff who have died so far of Covid-19, for example, at least three national newspapers are campaigning for all NHS staff to be awarded a medal for our bravery in “fighting” the virus. Medals, I imagine, are a matter of glory. But right now, my needs are frankly more prosaic. What I crave is sufficient masks and gowns.
...The more I hear Conservative MPs applaud and fawn over NHS staff, the more I think back to the footage from 2017 of those same MPs in the Commons cheering as they voted down a proper pay rise for nurses. Ellwood was among them, alongside Rishi Sunak, Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson.
Read the full article here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/02/nhs-doctor-forget-medals-and-flypasts-what-we-want-is-proper-pay-and-ppe