The NHS is for life, not just coronavirus – it needs more than applause to keep going

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All over the country, we clapped to say thank you to NHS staff who are working under tremendous pressure to support patients and their families during the coronavirus outbreak.

This should be a wake-up call for how we must change the way we treat NHS staff.

Let’s use this opportunity to end parking charges once and for all for NHS staff. Let’s stop charging overseas-born nationals hundreds of pounds to use a health service they work in to save lives. And let’s stop charging nurses and midwives for their tuition at university. The NHS is for life, not just for the coronavirus.

Chris Key
Address supplied

We all have the greatest respect and admiration for all NHS staff who are working tirelessly to help protect and save us. Why on earth are they being deprived of protective clothing whilst trying to save us, and putting themselves and their families at risk?

Shouldn’t the government be working around the clock to produce enough protective clothing for the people who we need most at this time? NHS staff are working so very hard for the people of our country. I felt quite emotional at 8pm on Thursday night when my street came out to applaud NHS staff but also felt very sad that they have to feel afraid due to lack of protection.

Marie Ruane
Address supplied

Protecting the NHS

Large numbers of people turned out on Thursday evening to applaud people involved in health care.

Could it be that a silver lining of the Covid-19 cloud is that, for the foreseeable future, no one seeking election will dare to consider any action that might threaten the NHS or its workers?

Susan Alexander
South Gloucestershire

The dog ate the EU’s email

Reading Tom Peck’s article (The government regrets to announce that a chance to procure ventilators somehow ended up in Boris Johnson’s spam folder​) regarding the offer from Europe for the UK to take part in the block procurement of ventilators and protective clothing to enable the NHS to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, I for one (and I am certain I am not alone) do not believe for one moment the government’s excuse for refusing to join in the procurement.

The claim that either the government didn’t get the memo, or it went into the spam box is absolutely shaming. It is the equivalent of “the dog ate my homework” and about as juvenile in thinking it will be believed.

The reality is that this Brexit-obsessed right-wing government could not bring itself to admit that we needed our European neighbours to help us through this crisis. Much like Boris Johnson’s reluctance to bring in closures of schools, pubs, bars etc looked like a sop to his insurance company financial backers, this government puts its own interests and ideology before the health and welfare of its people.

If the death toll rises as a result of this mismanagement of the crisis, one hopes that it will be remembered at the next election.

Kate Hall
Leeds

Blood money

If we need any proof that the world is run by and for the global financial sector it is the failure or refusal of governments to suspend trading in the world’s stock markets.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, businesses and cultural and sporting events have all been shut down and millions confined to their homes. Yet for the world’s stock markets, it has been business as usual. Each day, the leading markets have seen unexplained trading and the spectacular rise and fall of stocks leading to the collapse of earnings and the capitalisation of many major multinational corporations, posing a threat to their survival. Global financial funds often based offshore with limitless amounts of money at their disposal as well as speculators continue to manipulate markets looking for opportunities to profit from an unprecedented health and economic crisis.

At the outbreak of the Second World War when Britain stood alone, the government commandeered factories and the people were united in the task to produce military and medical equipment, gas masks and ensure food supplies, which changed the course of the war. In the present crisis, while health services face collapse, people are losing their lives and millions face losing their jobs, we need the same national cooperation and effort.

Nobody should be allowed to become rich from this virus.

Peter Fieldman​
Madrid

Dishing up double death in the US

The slim silver lining around the dark Covid-19 cloud is that, due to shutdowns, pollution has reduced so dramatically that lives saved from cleaner air may outweigh deaths from coronavirus in some areas.

Only dim-witted Donald Trump could seemingly deliberately dish up double death to his own people. In dithering, he has ensured an unchecked spread of the virus. And now it seems he is kowtowing to more craven demands from the fossil fuel industry to further slacken US environmental laws. The US could be the country that gets a double death deal.

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh