Why I'm not Clapping the NHS
It starts slow. Faint clapping and the banging of pans echo across the cool night sky. A couple of fireworks burst over the nearby park. A family whoops and cheers in the next street along. A chant of “NHS, NHS, NHS” builds louder.
But that odd sense of unease is back again.
What is it and am I the only one not clapping?
Plopping onto your couch, you dig deep. You sense an ancient circuit has fired up, the skeleton of something under-used but important. Ah, that’s it. Your Englishman’s sense of liberty is still there. It’s just a bit worn. But you can’t kill it - it’s baked into your DNA. And it does well to collar you from joining these dangerous rituals.
The clap grew out of good intentions, but the love-in has produced some unintended consequences.
Ill staff turning up for shifts
Healthcare employees have been rolling into work with COVID symptoms. As devoted and loyal individuals, NHS workers feel a profound urge to turn out and muck in. No one wants to let down the team in a war-like atmosphere.
But you have to wonder if the effects of the clapathon are boosting bad practice. The exuberant praise ladled over health-workers may be cementing a natural desire to turn in and help - even when the right thing would be to stay the hell away.
Don’t Feed the NHS
As an adjunct to the clap, a campaign has started to give free hot meals to NHS staff. Restaurant chains have rapidly signed up. If you were an NHS worker, wouldn't you be skeptical of the free meal offer. How’d you know the prep staff aren’t corona’d themselves?
Those clammy hands and sneezed-out employees, fingering foodstuffs in dark kitchens across the nation - there’s risk of nuking the very people you’re trying to help. The labourforce will tank - taking the entire health system with it.
Spotting the danger early, East Asian countries have been issuing cards with the temperature and health status of your scran preparation staff. Until it catches on here, I’d swerve the meals heavily.
The shell hardens
The love-in also makes it tougher to level legit criticisms at the NHS. This, paradoxically, weakens the institution. There is a core of dedicated people knee-deep in the nation’s guts, faeces and heart-ache all day. But the system is wildly wasteful and it burns skip-fulls of cash daily. NHS procurement is a profound mess and its supply chains are fragile. Fraud flows through its veins and money leaks out of every hole.
If we put the NHS on a cultural pedestal, shielding it from critique, we allow incompetence and waste to proliferate. The healthcare clap provides cover for systemic fuck-ups and sloppy decision-making. The clappers weaken and harm the very thing they praise.
Clampdown intensifies
When will the Police start to enforce the NHS clap? They’re already bearing down on non-essential item purchases, and people attempting to travel to legitimately-owned properties are being turned back. A second home is still a home, and it’s still a property you own. The feds are barring you from accessing your own possessions. An Englishman’s home is no longer his castle - the state will decide whether you can get in, and you’ll do as you’re told, mate.
The clap was well-intentioned. But it ultimately harms the whole system.
The frontline workers should be in our hearts each and every goddamn day.
Not just when someone decides it’s time to bang a spoon on a pan.
But that odd sense of unease is back again.
What is it and am I the only one not clapping?
Plopping onto your couch, you dig deep. You sense an ancient circuit has fired up, the skeleton of something under-used but important. Ah, that’s it. Your Englishman’s sense of liberty is still there. It’s just a bit worn. But you can’t kill it - it’s baked into your DNA. And it does well to collar you from joining these dangerous rituals.
The clap grew out of good intentions, but the love-in has produced some unintended consequences.
Ill staff turning up for shifts
Healthcare employees have been rolling into work with COVID symptoms. As devoted and loyal individuals, NHS workers feel a profound urge to turn out and muck in. No one wants to let down the team in a war-like atmosphere.
But you have to wonder if the effects of the clapathon are boosting bad practice. The exuberant praise ladled over health-workers may be cementing a natural desire to turn in and help - even when the right thing would be to stay the hell away.
Don’t Feed the NHS
As an adjunct to the clap, a campaign has started to give free hot meals to NHS staff. Restaurant chains have rapidly signed up. If you were an NHS worker, wouldn't you be skeptical of the free meal offer. How’d you know the prep staff aren’t corona’d themselves?
Those clammy hands and sneezed-out employees, fingering foodstuffs in dark kitchens across the nation - there’s risk of nuking the very people you’re trying to help. The labourforce will tank - taking the entire health system with it.
Spotting the danger early, East Asian countries have been issuing cards with the temperature and health status of your scran preparation staff. Until it catches on here, I’d swerve the meals heavily.
The shell hardens
The love-in also makes it tougher to level legit criticisms at the NHS. This, paradoxically, weakens the institution. There is a core of dedicated people knee-deep in the nation’s guts, faeces and heart-ache all day. But the system is wildly wasteful and it burns skip-fulls of cash daily. NHS procurement is a profound mess and its supply chains are fragile. Fraud flows through its veins and money leaks out of every hole.
If we put the NHS on a cultural pedestal, shielding it from critique, we allow incompetence and waste to proliferate. The healthcare clap provides cover for systemic fuck-ups and sloppy decision-making. The clappers weaken and harm the very thing they praise.
Clampdown intensifies
When will the Police start to enforce the NHS clap? They’re already bearing down on non-essential item purchases, and people attempting to travel to legitimately-owned properties are being turned back. A second home is still a home, and it’s still a property you own. The feds are barring you from accessing your own possessions. An Englishman’s home is no longer his castle - the state will decide whether you can get in, and you’ll do as you’re told, mate.
The clap was well-intentioned. But it ultimately harms the whole system.
The frontline workers should be in our hearts each and every goddamn day.
Not just when someone decides it’s time to bang a spoon on a pan.