By a London-based health care assistant

This weekend I attended the SOS NHS demo, my first time protesting as an NHS worker, working on the frontline.

Working for the past six months with some of society’s most vulnerable and marginalised people, those experiencing acute mental health illness and crisis, has made me more determined than ever, to stand up and speak out.

I see, feel, and experience, the challenges and pressures that our NHS faces today. Yet despite the continued and combined best efforts of my NHS colleagues and our ongoing ability to provide and deliver excellent services and care, under such pressures, we cannot offset nor disrupt the difficulties we face, with skills and good will alone.

Yet, we – NHS workers – remain resolute in continuing to care for you, your family and loved ones at every point, on every path, at every junction, on every road, in your journey – when you have an accident or illness, in crisis, when at your most vulnerable, when life is sadly lost, or when life joyfully begins.

We listen, support, clean, wipe, protect, care every step of the way. Our skills range from excellent tea-making, to cleaning wards, administering medicine, unclogging toilets, maintaining good safe IT systems, or fixing your hip.

Working dawn till dusk or dusk till dawn, 24/7, seven days a week, 365 days a year, year in year out. But we are not martyrs, so we can’t just keep calm and keep carrying on – and while altruism remains a driver for many of my colleagues, this should not be taken for granted, and our own good health is not unlimited.

Our NHS is indisputably the most sacred of our public institutions – treasured by the public, yet seemingly condemned, ready for demolition by recurrent governments.

The toll on an underfunded, and mismanaged NHS was evident long before the pandemic hit. The virus served as a cruel reminder of the fragility of life and our own mortality.

Yet the fight against Covid and the response by NHS workers remains a heart-warming reminder of humanity at its best and the best example of why workers deserve thanks by way of a decent pay rise in line with inflation.

We cannot settle for claps, nor pay our rent with tokenistic gestures. We do not find hope in vague pledges, nor are we assured by ambiguous statements. We still can’t heat our homes with three word slogans, nor fill our fridges and cupboards with food on wages that are below the inflation rate, that sometimes plunge us into hardship or poverty.

Most alarmingly, private health care providers, vulture-like, are poised and ready to swoop on the dying body of a grossly neglected and purposely harmed national health service, made ripe for the systematic chopping up and selling off to the highest bidder – the very institution that our lives literally depend on.

Yet these ‘vultures’ continue to proposition your MP and mine, offering large sums of money, via donations. We must ask: what do they want in return for their investment? We must demand greater transparency from those in power, from politicians across the political spectrum representing all parties. Far too many have opaque vested interests.

Poor population health can be compared to a leaking tap: the water will run somewhere; it will drip, trickle and flow, creating puddles, resulting in streams and rivers of health inequality across the nation.

Key to the good health of a nation’s people is sustainable economic growth, but successive governments have failed to prioritise the health of its people, resulting in a ‘ticking timebomb’ of ill-health. The fiscal policy of austerity ensured health outcomes took a dramatic turn for the worse.

As socioeconomic inequalities continue to widen health inequalities, chasms are laid bare. For the first time in decades, malnutrition is on the up, life expectancy is down, maternity outcomes have worsened and infant mortality rates have increased.

But it doesn’t have to be this way: there are cures. Join us in demanding:

– Emergency funding to save a struggling NHS

– Invest in a fully publicly owned NHS and guarantee free healthcare for future generations

– Pay staff properly: without fair pay, staffing shortages will cost lives.

Image: March 11th’s London NHS demonstration, with MPs Richard Burgon and John McDonnell behind the lead banner, c/o Mike Phipps