Tag: doctors

This Way Please

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Well we’re one step closer to a tyrannical regime. They’ve decided which direction we can now walk up the street. That would be an example of using an exaggerated statement to belittle a potentially legitimate argument on something ridiculous. Of course we’re not one step closer to a tyrannical regime because of this but it is ridiculous. I should probably explain a little more on what I’m talking about. As you can see from the picture they have created a one way system on the pavements. On one side of the road you can walk up the street and on the other you can walk down. Apparently it’s okay to go into shopping centres and queue outside Primark for hours but god forbid you face someone on the street as you walk towards and pass them. I had a similar opinion on having a one way system in the supermarket, all it seemingly did was confuse and stress people as they did huge laps just to pop back one aisle because they forgot something, or lingered behind as they weren’t sure if it was acceptable to pass you. Saying that I’m not dismissing the fact that statistically even if minimal it could probably have help prevent the spread in some way but it seemed like slight overkill. Outside on the street though; give over.

It’s very easy to get excited by something like this and use it as another example of people slowly being controlled, or getting used to being controlled in the most minute way. But all this is is some bureaucrat sitting in an office somewhere trying to justify the existence of their job and people spurring them on because they know they can use it as an example of some kind of action. Make no mistake something like this is for nothing other than appearance sake, a cosmetic little plaster to cover a deep wound. Actual action would be proper testing not just smudged empty figures, it would be actual PPE for nurses, doctors and care home assistant, it would be a contact tracing app that is ready before November not nearly a year after the first official case in the UK.

This nonsense outside on the street is nothing other than a local version of the same thing we have on a national level. Everything, literally everything, the government have done in combating the spread of Covid-19 has lacked even the remotest amount of substance. It has been enforced reactive empty action for nothing other than appearance sake and we have the highest death rate in the world as a result. Now we have a supposedly skint, when it suits them, council taking two days and four workers to put up and spray a few signs on one little street. Three months of nothing and now just as everything is reopening and the two metre distance rule probably dropped, they finally act. If as the Economist described it; “The government played a bad hand, badly”, the local council it appears don’t even know how to play. Or at least not the game they should be playing.

La Peste

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There are times when certain books need to be revisited. With current events, even though they seem to be drawing to a close, it might be worth pointing people in the direction of Albert Camus’ The Plague. It’s probably quite obvious why it’s a suitable book. Set in Oran in Camus’ native Algeria, he tells of the story of a city in quarantine trying to deal with the ravages of a plague working it’s way through the populace. The protagonist is a doctor trying to find answers in scientific explanations while the ruling classes prefer to prevaricate, cover up and live on false hope. Painfully relevant to contemporary events in our own Oran as an island cut off. Having been written in the years immediately after the Second World War, the plague was also supposed to represent the Nazi occupation, one Camus experienced first hand working as a publisher in the French Resistance. Apparently in Britain alone, sales of the ebook have risen by three thousand percent which is quite remarkable.

There was an article in The Sunday Times a few weeks ago that was a translation of a letter Camus wrote to doctors during the early years of the war. In it he offers advice to doctors in how best to deal with plagues. I assume there must have been a lot of plagues back then, unless this was also a reference to Nazi occupation. It is in many ways a precursor to his book. He gives some advice on how best to avoid exposure, the importance of wine “to lessen the dismay that will engulf you” and probably most importantly of all to “never get used to seeing people die”. Sometimes it’s easy to not notice the new normal slowly ebbing it’s way into taking over our existence and once death becomes normalised, life will lose some of the value it once held. In times of plagues, pandemics and political occupations it is always vital to remember what is not normal. If that does become the case, well wine will always help.

“The fact remains that none of this is easy. Despite your masks and sachets, the vinegar and the protective clothing, despite the calmness of your courage and tireless effort, the day will come when you can no longer bear this city of dying people…their cries, their terror that knows no future. The day will come when you will want to shout out your disgust in the face of everyone’s pain and fear. When that day comes, there will no longer be any solution I can offer, other than compassion, which is the sister of ignorance”

Off With Their Heads

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I want to talk about how the narrative being pushed is of the NHS as a sick patient needing put on life support. Struggling on it’s last legs, like an exhausted charity it needs donations from the public, twenty odd million from some old fella who walked around his garden a few times for example. Civil society in action once more, people being leant on to save the day. It’s the corona version of climate change, the people making all the changes; recycle to save the planet but don’t dare look into the corporations doing all that polluting and the governments complicit in their poisonous behaviour. Once more we as a people are stepping up when required, it’s amazing really because it shows what we can do when we have to. It also highlights how little our governments are fulfilling their end of the social contract we signed with them when we chose to vote and place them in power. Are they not supposed to use our tax payments to fund the NHS? It isn’t as if there isn’t the money available, vanity projects like the HS2 rail line and arms deals like the Trident nuclear submarines make this abundantly clear. The government spent twenty one million on consultants and advisers trying to find ways to save thirty billion in cuts to vital public services, such as the NHS. Let’s just say Captain Tom’s money can at least cover that. If they have the money when they want then, it must be safe to say this chronic underfunding, nay criminal underfunding; can only have been intentional.

But I won’t talk about that. I won’t talk about the lack of PPE for nurses and doctors, about how it appears that the government are either incompetent, which is alarming, negligent, which is alarming or they are intentionally acting in a way that is contrary to their public protestations, which is slightly reassuring because it means that everything is at least normal, and normal is safe remember. But I won’t talk about that either.

It’s not about being defeatist, I just can’t be bothered because if I did it would probably just end up in a little rant and that seems pointless. Also I always imagine this must be obvious to everyone and they know already and are either outraged or ignoring personal narrative conflicting information. Considering the media are doing such a blatant support act of the current government that even Piers Morgan has become a hero of the disillusioned masses, I probably shouldn’t make too many assumptions. It is a shit show really and it’s a frustrating one. There’s something within us that wants and believes those who commit wrongs unto others are in one way or another punished for it. Yet politicians and those lobbying politicians seem to not only walk free, but walk off with a disproportionate share of the pie. That is why if anything we don’t live in a rational world. Or maybe we do, maybe it is irrational to imagine things may change for the better and the delusion can end. All is random then and each day just unfolds with everyone scrambling around hoping they see it out and wake up in the next. And if that feels real now, dear lord just imagine what that’ll feel like when the revolution comes and people start chopping off each others heads. I know who I’ll be going for though and it won’t be my neighbour.

A Trojan Of A Virus

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History will tell us any event of a large enough scale will have an effect capable of making changes of if not a permanent basis then ones which last for a considerable length of time. The First World War for example set in motion a series of events that led to our present day societies, that was a huge moment but one which can show the long term effects of something we can never go back on. In more modern times the attacks in New York on the eleventh of September have led to an entire region of this planet being completely destroyed and changed, in many ways it is a before and after event.

When you have such moments there are inevitably changes within your own society and in the immediate aftermath of this the Americans allowed their government to push through a series of draconian spying laws. These were justified on the basis that they would offer protection against another attack. How they are now in reality I don’t know but I doubt they have disappeared, more likely it’s just an example of shifting baseline syndrome. We in the UK had similar and this was amplified after we had a few bombings, the government introduced the Snoopers Charter as it was known by everyone except those trying to push it.

On a less invasive level, in China during the SARS outbreak; one Chinese businessman recognised the necessity of a new approach to online shopping which revolutionised how the Chinese interacted with shopping online. With this Coronavirus the Chinese have relaxed laws around online pharmacies so that not only can you get medicine but you can chat to doctors online and get prescriptions too. This is proving to be incredibly popular and successful, and while it is unclear yet how this online industry will operate once Covid-19 passes, it is highly unlikely they will return to how it was prior to the outbreak.

While I may no be sure of the veracity of the Coronavirus, it is undeniable that it is becoming a worldwide phenomena if it isn’t one already. I’m not denying it’s potential seriousness but I don’t doubt it will pass. What though will the long term results of it be. Italy is currently in lockdown, it is almost inevitable Britain will be in quarantine at one point. We have no idea what it will do to the local economies let alone the world economy. What affect will it have on the supply chain. Will people reevaluate how they store food and supplies. Will we view governments with any credibility when they try to convince us they’re capable of upholding their end of the social contract. Are we just witnessing a New World Order Trojan Horse moment as I saw on a meme today. I have no idea to any of these, but if it continues at it’s present pace there is no doubting there will be some permanent changes we can only recognise in retrospect. These don’t have to be sinister, they could be innocuous, innocent and boring but it will be interesting, assuming I survive, to be able to look back in ten years and observe the changes. I doubt we’re witnessing a before and after moment but certainly there will be something that exists after the event that wasn’t here before.

Night Shift

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There are certain jobs that suit different people over others. I’ve done a few bread deliveries over the last month and it is one of those jobs that would be either perfect or a nightmare. Getting up early is a total nightmare of course when you’re not in that rhythm and you end up doing the shift on only three hours sleep but it doesn’t take a lot of thought so you can get by. It is one of those jobs that gives you the opportunity for some peace and quiet as you rarely speak to anyone until a few hours into the shift and even then it’s only a few sentences of routine greetings and jokes. I can imagine there is a certain repetition and they must love it when a new guy comes along. The roads are empty, it is dark, quiet and you have time for yourself. There’s also another world of things and people going on that over time would give opportunity to the most interesting set of stories. Without the interesting random events though it would probably become tedious like any job and if I’m still helping out here in ten years doing this then please somebody come and find me. There’s also the possibility that these interesting stories are only comparatively interesting and are few and far between. From time to time and in the short term though there is something interesting and enjoyable about it, but then you could say that about virtually any job if you were the sort with a curious mind.

I would be interested to know what a night shift stocking shelves in a supermarket would be like. I hope to never find out, let me make that clear, but the curiosity is more that I wonder if I enjoy the van driving at night over the working at night, I suspect I would hate every second of stocking shelves no matter the time of day, or the packing warehouse, or especially the cold outdoor work in the winter. So perhaps it has nothing to do with the night time but more with my fondness for driving around and feeling all warm inside my van. I do prefer the night hours more though. There is also some romanticism going on here and I have always imagined lorry drivers have been the types who love the solitude, the long endless nights and being left alone. In fact I have met a few, I have hitched with a few, and while I can’t confirm they enjoy being left alone they can be total oddballs for sure.

Ultimately it takes a certain type of person to work nights, to work such unsocial hours which seem to conflict with our natural rhythm. I have a lot of respect for nurses and doctors in that case as not only do they work nights but sometimes days too, and even then there shifts are long and intense. People are generally amazing I think is the conclusion and by amazing I mean they are all so varied there is always something to discover. Why we seem so determined to pander to our fears and box everyone away, especially in such enormous generalised boxes is beyond me. There may be jobs out there but try getting everyone to work a night shift unless they love it or are desperate and you can see why people don’t want to just work any job. If people were just given the education to discover there own paths then what an interesting workforce we would have. That and a bit of variety I would imagine.