The NHS under a Tory government - what I see
I see exhausted staff at breaking point, who still push through and stay hours after their shifts have ended as they refuse to abandon their patients. I see more shortages of key drugs than ever before. The shortages are more numerous and are lasting longer as long established companies move their business out of the UK. Importing replacements is slowed by confusion caused by the still pending Brexit.
Speaking of Brexit, I see talented, dedicated staff, who were born in the EU, who chose to come to work for the NHS look around and not feel welcome any longer. I have seen so many of them depart, to say nothing of the ones I have never had the chance to meet as they decide not to come at all.
I see a pharmacist literally dizzy with hunger as she sits down at 3pm for the first time since 8am, she's been ensuring all patients needing parenteral nutrition can receive it. It would've been easier except there aren't enough phlebotomists to take all the blood samples needed to prescribe it safely.
I see the development of new drugs stall and stop as research funding from abroad dries up.
I see staff running up and down up to 12 flights of stairs to answer a crash call. I see staff repeatedly running these stairs as there aren't enough lifts, and those available are broken or so frequently being fixed that there are even fewer available.
I see the canteen out of action and a ward being evacuated in the middle of the night due to a sewer pipe bursting. Want to bet replacing or upgrading those pipes is on the long list of maintenance jobs that are put off due to lack of funding?
I see elderly patients stuck in hospital for weeks because the social care system is in an even worse state than we in the NHS are. I see them kept in hospital so long that they catch infections.
I see patients who have attempted suicide sent home with a phone number to call and their name added to an extensive waiting list, because we need the bed. Then I see them come again later in the month. I worry for the ones I don't see again.
I see the patients admitted due to their dependence on alcohol or illicit drugs. There are support services in the community, but these too are so overloaded and underfunded that it becomes a fire-fighting exercise. And we are dealing with the burns of those they can't help.
I see the homeless patients who are admitted with hypothermia in winter and heat stroke in summer. I've seen staff go out and buy, with their own (meager) wages, socks and shoes for patients without them. As we couldn't bear to send a patient back out into the cold without any.
I've seen patients with chronic illnesses like asthma, admitted with entirely preventable symptoms, because they had to decide between paying the prescription charge or buying food.
I've seen the junior doctors fight and fight for better working conditions and for them to be ignored.
And yet while I see all this and it does break my heart, I know I am not alone in refusing to abandon ship. I fear it will get worse over the coming years. Boris Johnson wants to sell off our NHS to private companies, he's already begun this in small ways. What he wants is to show the system is ineffective as it is. Mostly its ineffective as it, and its connected services are under-funded and overstretched. He will not chase me off, I will not abandon ship!
