LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd May, 2020) The coronavirus crisis in the United Kingdom has exposed inadequacies of neoliberal approaches to the National Health Service (NHS), and the current celebration of medical workers should be translated into a cardinal change of the policy toward the sector after the pandemic ends, Chris Williamson, a former Labour member of parliament for Derby North, who is seeking to set up a socialist grassroots movement, told Sputnik.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson qualified the current pandemic as the biggest challenge the country faced since World War II. After announcing that the UK had passed the peak at his first briefing after recovering from the virus on April 30, he went outside 10 Downing Street to personally clap for the "fantastic" NHS. Medical workers at the same time continue complaining about the shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE). On the eve of International Workers' Day, a group of nurses staged a rally on Westminster Bridge to demand PPE.
"I saw protesters, nurses on Westminster Bridge with a big banner basically saying 'we're not disposable and nobody goes to work to die' and they were making the point about the inadequate supply of PPE and so on. I'm hoping it will go beyond simple support for funding and growing awareness of the importance of the National Health Service but also I'm hoping that people will have the scales removed from their eyes as to the inadequacies of a neoliberal, corporate capitalist system that's not fit for purpose," Williamson said.
According to the politician, the country needs "public services that are properly funded and financed." He urged the government to put the words of admiration for health workers into concrete action after the pandemic.
"How great it is that people are showing solidarity with NHS workers ... But you can't spend applause, lovely as it is. It's got to be translated into proper recognition for and support for people doing these really important jobs. All the key workers in fact, this has really demonstrated the kind of jobs that are really vital. It's not bankers and hedge fund managers is it? It's shop workers and distribution workers and health workers and social care workers and street cleaners, these sorts of things. We cannot do without them," he stated.
People , he went on, should recognize that and change the situation when some of these workers are "having to claim some kind of social security top up just to survive."
"It's a disgrace. And this in the fifth biggest economy in the world. So hopefully this will galvanise people and one of the things we're hoping to do with this movement is build on that, build on that good will and that recognition as to how important key workers are and that they are so grotesquely under-paid," he argued.
As of Friday, the UK updated its COVID-19 tally by 6,201 cases to 177,454. The death toll has risen by 739 to 27,510.
