How UK Government is failing our Covid heroes – Christine Jardine MP

Nurses should be given a pay rise while health and social care workers from overseas should be allowed to remain in the UK, says Christine Jardine MP.

NHS nurses protest outside Glasgow Royal Infirmary after being left out of a public sector pay rise (Picture: John Devlin)

If you fainted in the street and came round to find there was someone you didn’t know looking after you, would you send them away?

If it was your child, your mother, your partner who needed help would you thank the stranger who stopped or would you send them packing?

All across the country these past five months that kindness of strangers has been central to our survival. As individuals, as a community, as a country.

There are pictures that I remember from the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis which illustrate that perfectly.

Row after row of headshots of NHS workers who had lost their lives to the virus.

Mostly happy, smiling faces, many in the workplace and uniform which exposed them to the health hazard which claimed their lives.

I was proud of the way that our communities emerged on their doorsteps every Thursday to applaud those working in the health and care sectors.

But the questions I have found myself asking are: Is it enough? How can it be enough?

And now as we begin to emerge from our Covid cocoon I believe the answers are clear.

No. It is not. It cannot be.

Our Government has not done enough either for those born and brought up in this country or those who have come here to work.

For all of those working in our NHS for the past year there must surely be more recognition, and thanks, for putting themselves in harm’s way.

I have been lucky in this pandemic, so far.

But all around me are people who have been seriously ill, lost their jobs or are grieving.

We have all done our best to abide by the guidance to stay home, stay safe, keep our distance and watch for signs of the virus.

We are bracing ourselves for the second wave which will demand yet more self-restraint and understanding.

And for those in those front-line services it will mean yet more risk.

Recently I wrote to both Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock and Scottish Cabinet Health Secretary Jeane Freeman making the case for all nurses to be paid more.

Neither was receptive.

Supportive words? Yes, a few. Actions? Not so much.

But there is something else that I believe we must all recognise, a contribution that should be marked in much the same way as that of the Ghurkas who fought for this country and now have the right to live here.

This pandemic has not discriminated in its victims.

But increasingly our governments, at both Westminster and Holyrood, will have to account for their discrimination in who they support.

There are almost four million excluded who have received no help whatsoever in the five months since the economy hit the Covid buffers.

And there are those who will need and deserve our support in the future.

Earlier this summer, I met a doctor who had been working in Accident and Emergency at the frontline of this pandemic.

He has lost colleagues and knows the daily strain of fighting to help those struggling to combat the virus while never being completely sure if he has been infected himself.

He is a migrant who has been working on the frontline and paying tax and national insurance.

But he will have to apply for a fresh visa.

If he fails, he will have to leave.

He will lose the life he has built, his friends and career.

We will lose the skills he has developed here and his contribution.

That seems both illogical and immoral.

Someone who has put their life at risk for us deserves better than that.

There is, of course, also the added factor that many of those at the frontline are from a BAME background and, for them, the risk is heightened.

For many others who have been contributing there is no possibility of support through universal credit or any of the Government schemes if they lose their jobs in the sector because of their immigration status.

Mercy Beguma is a name which we should remember. A woman working to support her child who lost her job because she did not have that vital leave to remain.

She had no recourse to public finds. She was found dead. Her child beside her.

Let that sink in.

Over the past few months, I have been increasingly frustrated that this Government isn’t seeking to right what is clearly a fundamental wrong. Surely when it comes to those in our health and care sectors who are putting their lives on the line to protect us we should be doing everything we can to provide for them.

Tomorrow I will put forward a Private Members Bill calling for all of those foreign nationals who work in our hospitals and care homes and have visas which will run out to be given the option to remain.

They have put their lives at risk for this country and we should welcome them. I mentioned earlier that I have been fortunate, so far, in that neither I nor anyone that I love has fallen victim to Covid-19.

But if, God forbid, they do, I know that they will have the weight of our NHS and every one in it behind them.

If only I could be sure that our government would do the same for them.

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West

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