Our dear old NHS
Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You does what it says … well, almost.
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, no less than 109 celebrities responded to a request to contribute a short entry thanking the heroes manning the fort of our National Health Service.
The entries include personal anecdotes, poems, short stories, letters, catalogues of encounters with hospitals and individuals that have left a lasting impression. Almost all write well and gratefully. And in these post-pandemic days of strikes and desperately long waiting lists and assaults on staff and shortages of resources and people, it’s perhaps helpful to be reminded of the compassion and dedication of the 1.5 million health-related employees who underpin our very British institution.
I can do no better than share a few excerpts.
Dame Emma Thompson
We can clap and we can whoop and holler our gratitude from the rooftops, and we should, and we do – but after this we all have to insist that whatever goverment is in place takes immediate action to recognise The Indispensables by raising their wages. By listening to what has been and is being learned, and what we now know is essential to have in place for the next time this happens – which the science seems to suggest, is inevitable.
Our NHS was created after a great crisis – a world war. After this crisis must come a great and deep reckoning who and what do we really value and how do we protect, nurture and support them.
Benjamin Zephaniah
The NHS is for life, not just for emergencies.
Peter Capaldi
… probably the greatest idea anyone has ever had: the NHS.
Katie Piper
Your compassion, empathy and dedication goes way beyond your job role. No lunch breaks, clock watching or legging it out of the door the minute the shift ends. Staying on past the end of shifts to hold hands, working unpaid overtime. Care and compassion is the driving force always at the forefront of your exhausted minds …
You are the backbone of our country; take you away and we all fall down.
Andrew Marr
Our hospitals run on taxpayers’ money, world class training and inspiring dedication. But beyond all that, they run on humour, amd humanity. It isn’t the buildings or the awesome technology that we stand to applaud when we clap for the NHS. It’s the grit, the realism and the gutsy humour of the exraordinary people who keep it going.
Nick Hornby
[Asked by people why he doesn’t choose private treatment for his severely autistic son with multiple medical problems; why he doesn’t ‘want the best for him’?]
… the NHS is the best for him. This is not ideological or emotional commitment speaking; it’s a fact. My son’s problems and conditions have been acute, yes, but also taxing, puzzling amd sometimes right at the edge of the range and reach of current medical knowledge. In Britain, at least, the only people likely to know are the staff at the big teaching hospitals. We couldn’t go anywhere else, because nowhere else would have been good enough.
Mark Haddon
… the NHS is one of the most principled, humane, generous and efficient institutions in the world, and one of the few remaining reasons I feel proud to be British, despite the drip, drip, drip of privatisation by politicians and businesspeople wanting to push it gradually closer to the hellscape of an American medical system where people go bankrupt because they have cancer.
Jojo Moyes
I believe the NHS serves a greater purpose in the British psyche than just caring for our health. It reminds us that there is such a thing as the common good, an idea of true service … something way beyond the desire of making money or progressing up a career ladder – and that sense of goodness.
Greg Wise
From the receptionists to the nurses, oncologists, radiographers, therapists – everyone we came into contact with met us with kindness, compassion, humour, expertise and, above all, a profound sense of humanity.
… Let our support grow, and grow. Treasure, nurture and applaud forever.
Though each story was unique, some themes recurred:
– care of familes not just the patient
– staff not ridiculing or scolding or turning patients away even when they’re to blame
– service free to all no matter their wealth or status or merit
– consistent compassion, empathy, kindness, dedication.
OK, there were occasional glancing references to imperfections in the system and rogue carers. And yes, you sceptics out there, these were all famous folk who might well get excellent care because of their celebrity. Nonetheless, let’s not forget the huge surge of gratitude during the pandemic, the awareness of indebtedness, now that that particular crisis is past. What are we doing NOW to truly value the people and organisations that give us this amazing access to free first-class medical care? Have we forgotten so soon?
Thou shalt not covet … Terrifying history as fiction