SAVE OUR HEROES: help the NHS

The masks you can see our healthcare workers wearing in the above photo have been proven scientifically to have zero protective qualities against COVID-19. They're completely useless yet our NHS staff have to use them as our government are struggling to provide proper equipment!

Amged el-Hawrani, Adel el-Tayar and Habib Zaidi are the first doctors to have lost their lives protecting British people from the corona virus. May they rest in peace. They made the ultimate sacrifice.

Sadly, many more doctors, nurses and healthcare workers will die in our country. This will be partly because there is no adequate personal protection equipment (PPE) or sufficient testing of frontline workers in our NHS.

Today The Guardian leaked a report exposing the huge shortage of PPE for healthcare workers showing depleted stocks of vital equipment including masks, eye protection and basic hygiene products. With 20,000 former NHS workers returning to work and putting their lives on the line along side the hundreds of thousands already in the NHS – it is not acceptable to send them into the battlefield without adequate protection and testing.

It is sadly evident that our NHS workers have resorted to using makeshift and inadequate protective gear as a senior doctor working in a West Midlands Hospital explains: ‘we have cleaners, healthcare assistants, nurses and they’re just using aprons that you use to serve lunches and dinners because we have run out of protective gowns’.

The lack of PPE is causing doctors on the front line who are experiencing shortages to become ‘anxious over the adequacy of the equipment’ says the British Medical Council.

As a society we need to protect our NHS workers so they can protect us. You wouldn’t send firemen into a burning fire without proper protection, so why are we sending our NHS workers into work without protection and testing?

The perception is that the supply is there, and it is getting to the doctors. But the reality is otherwise.

In such circumstances it is our duty to help where we can. We are therefore launching a campaign to raise funds to acquire personal protection equipment that is fit for purpose and to source testing kits to fill that gap.

This is an urgent plea to the public to donate where you can. Donations will be used to source and provide adequate PPE for doctors which will include: masks, goggles, gowns gloves...

We will also use donations to source and buy testing kits. Where necessary funds will go to other similar causes. 

Our prime minster has said today that there is something called society, we are not just individuals in it for ourselves. We can’t agree with this more and we know that you want to stand up for our NHS workers. 

Please give what you can.

sincerely,

Basharat Ali
President
Pakistan Club