Why healthcare workers are quitting in droves

‘About one in five health-care workers has left their job since the pandemic started. This is their story—and the story of those left behind...

‘Health-care workers aren't quitting because they can’t handle their jobs. They’re quitting because they can’t handle being unable to do their jobs. Even before COVID-19, many of them struggled to bridge the gap between the noble ideals of their profession and the realities of its business. The pandemic simply pushed them past the limits of that compromise...

‘Several health-care workers told me that, amid the most grueling working conditions of their careers, their hospitals cut salaries, reduced benefits, and canceled raises; forced staff to work more shifts with longer hours; offered trite wellness tips, such as keeping gratitude journals, while denying paid time off or reduced hours; failed to provide adequate personal protective equipment; and downplayed the severity of their experiences.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Nov 16, 2021)

Science alone can’t heal a sick society

‘Science is a social process, and we all live amid the social soup of personalities, parties and power. The political dysfunction that holds America hostage also holds science hostage. Dr. Virchow wrote that “mass disease means that society is out of joint.” Society’s being out of joint means that epidemiological research is out of joint, because it exists inside the same society. This is not a new problem, but the dominant “follow the science” mantra misses the fact that the same social pathology that exacerbates the pandemic also debilitates our scientific response to it.

‘To restore faith in science, there must be faith in social institutions more broadly, and this requires a political reckoning. Of course one can cite many specific challenges for scientists: The wheels are coming off the peer review system, university research is plagued by commercialization pressures, and so on. But all of these are the symptoms, not the underlying disease. The real problem is simply that sick societies have sick institutions. Science is not some cloistered preserve in the clouds, but is buried in the muck with everything else. This is why, just eight days after his investigation in Upper Silesia, Dr. Virchow went to the barricades in Berlin to fight for the revolution.‘

Read here (New York Times, Sept 10, 2021)

Privatised health services worsen pandemic

‘Decades of public health cuts have quietly taken a huge human toll, now even more pronounced with the pandemic. Austerity programmes, by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, have forced countries to cut public spending, including health provisioning.’

This story is well argued and contains several relevant and informative links under the following subheadings:

• ‘Government is the problem’
• Neoliberal reforms worse
• Unhealthy reforms
• Austerity kills
• Government not main problem

Read here (IPS News, Aug 24, 2021) 

Covid in India: Missing facts, misdirected discourse

‘The current stentorian discourse sans facts, which shifts the blame on to the government for the supply chain failures of hospitals, misses a more critical fact. Anticipating a contingency like this, the Modi government had ordered 162 PSA plants at a cost of over Rs 200 crore in October last for government hospitals all over India. This could have produced 80,500 litres of medical oxygen per minute. This translates approximately to one ton of liquid oxygen per day per plant. 

‘But out of plants ordered for 162 hospitals, only 33 got installed. Why? Even state government hospitals thwarted the Centre’s plan for on-the-spot oxygen production facilities. The Print says, orders were placed in December but when vendors reached the hospitals for installation, many “faced resistance” from them, pretending “no space” — the real reason being vested interest to procure oxygen rather than generating the entire requirement onsite. This showed how advance planning for on-the-spot oxygen supply by the Centre was thwarted by even the state-run hospitals. In the contemporary shouting and counter shouting in the media and social media, has anyone heard about this farsighted move of the government, beyond the feeble voice of The Print?’

Read here (New Indian Express, Apr 27, 2021) 

Covid-19 in India—profits before people

...‘In the interim, in a uniquely cynical strategy, the Modi government has passed the buck on vaccination to the states, without providing any funding—indeed making them pay higher prices. It has agreed with the private producers a pricing system whereby state governments already desperately short of finances and facing hard budget constraints will have to pay up to four times what the central government pays for the same vaccines...

Disaster capitalism: ‘The latest sign of this active encouragement of disaster capitalism by the Indian state is even more egregious. In the proposed opening up of vaccination to the 18-45 age group from May 1st, access is to be limited to private hospitals and clinics, and only on payment—with prices ranging from ₹1,200 to ₹2,400 (€13.25-€26.5) per dose! Obviously, the poor will be unable to afford the vaccines, and so the pandemic will rage on, the massive human suffering will continue and countless lives will be lost.’

Read here (Social Europe, Apr 27, 2021)

Fighting the medical monopoly: Mobilising for Zero-Covid and decommodified healthcare

‘As I have discussed in an article on Interferon 2b and Cuba’s other treatments for COVID-19, decommodified universal healthcare is the alternative to monopoly-driven healthcare ravaging countries around the globe. Not for profit production and delivery of all health related goods responding to general and specific human needs of the majority of any given country is the only means to assure quality health for all, in pandemic as well as non-pandemic times.

‘More concretely, decommodified universal healthcare is ecologically sound, public sector production of everything from food to psychological support, medicines to medical technology, and medical care. Rather than results based management and other corporate models adopted by most state owned enterprises globally in the past four decades, such public production would be designed and managed democratically by citizens, health professionals, scientists, and the range of other workers involved.

‘Taxation of corporations and rich individuals would be the primary means of financing decommodified universal healthcare. Due to the social importance of health related goods, and high employment potential given the extent of need in most countries around the globe, decommodified universal healthcare would constitute a significant segment of needs based, ecologically sound, nationally focused economies.’

Read here (The Bullet, Mar 4, 2021)

Don’t let private hospitals jump the vaccination queue ― no special privileges for the rich! ― Suaram

‘Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) believes that the commercialisation of the Covid-19 vaccination by the private hospitals would only encourage “queue-cutting” where the rich and powerful stands to gain and potentially undermine the government's national programme and weakens social solidarity.

‘Furthermore, allowing private hospitals to procure vaccines and subsequently running their own vaccination programme also contradicts the principles of giving everyone an equal opportunity in the country’s largest vaccination programme ever.’

Read here (Malay Mail, March 3, 2021)

Inside Britain's test-and-trace: How the ‘world beater’ went wrong

‘The name NHS Test and Trace sounds like it is one whole service that is part of the NHS. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a complex web of different programmes, led by the civil service, that have been bolted together rapidly. Private firms play a key role in terms of both testing and tracing, which has meant some of the local expertise available in the NHS, universities and councils has been bypassed.’

Read here (BBC, Nov 20, 2020)

Covid-19 has exposed the catastrophic impact of privatising vital services

‘The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the catastrophic fallout of decades of global privatisation and market competition. When the pandemic hit, we saw hospitals being overwhelmed, caregivers forced to work with virtually no protective equipment, nursing homes turned into morgues, long queues to access tests, and schools struggling to connect with children confined to their homes. People were being urged to stay at home when many had no decent roof over their heads, no access to water and sanitation, and no social protection. 

‘For many years, vital public goods and services have been steadily outsourced to private companies. This has often resulted in inefficiency, corruption, dwindling quality, increasing costs and subsequent household debt, further marginalising poorer people and undermining the social value of basic needs like housing and water. We need a radical change in direction.’

Read here (The Guardian, Oct 19, 2020)

‘You have to take action’: One hospital cleaner’s journey through the pandemic

‘Two years ago, Ernesta decided she wanted to improve things for the cleaners at Lewisham hospital. She believed they deserved better pay and better treatment. She joined the union, persuaded her colleagues to join, too, and they began to organise themselves. In a long campaign to improve their working lives – a campaign that has persevered through a pandemic – the cleaners have won various battles, but they still have more to fight. In the past three months, their vulnerability has also been made distressingly clear. Cleaners from all over the country have died from Covid-19 – two of those who died worked down the road from Lewisham at St George’s hospital in Tooting. The pandemic has revealed what was always obvious to Ernesta: a hospital can’t function without its cleaners. They are as vital to its purpose as any of the other frontline staff, and equally at risk.’

Read here (The Guardian, June 30, 2020)