Socialist Party Wales Socialism In Wales
Thousands of NHS, care workers and workers in other public services across Wales are carrying out vital work unprotected against the Coronavirus. This puts the workers, their patients and service users and their families at risk. And if they become sick with Covid-19 they will be unable to work putting treatment and care at risk. Along with testing, personal protective equipment (PPE) is absolutely vital to protect workers and the vital public services they provide.
But across the UK these workers are pleading for protective equipment but very little equipment is getting through. Government ministers reel off statistics but its not getting through.
The incompetence of the Johnson government (who’s original strategy was to allow the virus to spread to gain ‘herd immunity’) is only matched by the impotence of the Welsh government. It has followed the UK government’s strategy to the letter and is failing in exactly the same way as the UK government to provide PPE.
Public Health Wales appears to be rationalising the shortage of equipment by issuing advice on the use of equipment that falls way short of safety standards. This puts workers’ health and lives at risk, but also threatens the services they provide.
NHS staff have resorted to home made equipment or had none when treating suspected Covid-19 patients. Workers in the Royal Mint at Llantrisant have improvised equipment for the workers at the nearby Royal Glamorgan hospital.
Carmarthenshire County Unison branch has taken up the issue with the county council employers, but has also spoken out at the failure of the Welsh government in a statement:
Carmarthenshire County Unison raised with senior management of Carmarthenshire County Council yesterday that we did not accept the guidance of Public Health Wales when it comes to the use of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). Public Health Wales advises that PPE should only be used where a patient is exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms or has Covid-19.We stated that we wanted all care workers who work in Domiciliary Care and in Residential Care to have full PPE that includes a mask, eye protection, disposable gloves and aprons. We stated that the current guidance did not protect service users from contracting the virus from carers and visa versa and if our members/staff continued visiting service users without adequate PPE this would inevitably result in very serious consequences for service users, carers and the service could be at risk of breakdown.
Senior management agreed that staff needed to be given full PPE for the above reasons but related that this was not a problem of their making but they were not getting sufficient PPE supplies from the Welsh Government (WG) despite pleading for supplies.
It would appear that the Labour-led WG are attempting to make a silk purse of sow’s ear- they do not have enough PPE but rather than admit this to the public, NHS frontline staff and care workers in local government they appear to be rationing PPE by telling frontline health and local government care workers to only use PPE when someone is suspected of having Covid-19 or they have symptoms and where local authorities ask for more tell them to stop misusing it!
The guidance of WG through Public Health Wales is built around protecting WG from criticism. We ask no we demand where is the desperately needed PPE for staff who are working day in day out in difficult circumstances to provide vital services to the most vulnerable in society.
The situation is so bad that the Directors of Local Government Social Care have we understand jointly written a letter to the Welsh Local Government Association complaining about the lack of PPE; that the current guidance lacks logic and that the guidance risks causing a failure in the service. This strongly worded letter starkly points out the consequences of current policy.
While it could not be predicted when a new virus would come on the scene it was entirely predictable that a new virus would rear its ugly head at some stage. It seems apparent that the WG and successive Tory governments did not plan sufficiently for this eventuality. Not only did they not plan sufficiently the Labour WG dutifully passed on devastating Tory cuts to local government in Wales and underfunded our NHS by a billion pounds. These savage cuts were then administered by every council in Wales leaving them in a much weakened state to fight the impact of Convid-19. Our members will strive might and main to keep critical services going but they are not being given the tools (PPE) to do the job and stay safe. We are told we are all in this together but it seems care workers are being expected to work in risker situations than most.
The Labour Welsh Government needs to come clean about what PPE it has and how it is going to get more. Care staff and NHS frontline workers need full PPE and they need it now. If necessary it should nationalise companies to ensure adequate supply. The Welsh Government needs to be demanding the full funding of NHS in Wales and that council funding by Central Government is returned to 2010 levels.
