T.R.O.Y. wrote:It’s not, it’s good to expose where there are shortcomings though so government policy is directed correctly - we’ve seen it in the last week with care homes.
It really doesn't work like that though in my experience of working in the public sector.
If we had sufficient PPE's for everyone who needed and sufficient tests/analysis to see if anyone had the virus then does anyone really and truly think care homes wouldn't have been issued them much sooner than now?
The reality of the situation is more likely to be there simply wasn't enough to start with and the inability to acquire all of what we need since.
What we did have obviously had to go to those who needed them the most which are the hospitals.
Put bluntly if you haven't the tools to save everyone's life then do you try to save folk in their forties/fifties/sixties who are able to function in society or those in their eighties/nineties/hundreds in the care homes, a great many of whom have underlying health issues and/or dementia.
I'm not being callous or heartless, just giving the stark choice faced.
The government hasn't suddenly bowed to 'scrutiny' to now suddenly start supplying the care homes because it is the right thing to do but because they must have acquired the means to do so recently and haven't been able to prior than now.
I 'get' people highlighting/condemning the government not having PPE's, testing, and even dying because of the lack of being prepared for the tsunami of demand for these things but all the scrutiny in the world can change a thing if the country simply doesn't have enough of the PPE's and ability to test/process for the virus - they can't somehow be magicked up out of thin air somehow.
Every needless death is a tragedy but if you can't save everybody then I guess you try to save the ones with most to live for now, where you can.
Scrutiny doesn't change anything other than to highlight one of the sad consequences of this saga - and one that has been played out in most if not all of the country's that have faced this - it's certainly not a unique criticism of just this country alone.
Banging on about things changes nothing if there's nothing left in the pot to give.
No doubt facemasks will be one of the next big 'scrutinised' areas put under the microscope but if there is less than a perfect supply now for just the front line staff presently then where can the literal mountains of masks required for everyone else suddenly appear from, when all the rest of the world are scrambling for them too?
Even if we had of been on the EU procurement order the stocks we would have got would have amounted to a piss in the ocean for the numbers we would need to keep everybody in the UK adequately supplied with them for the many months/years we are going to have to deal with this until we beat it.
Scrutiny is all well and good in normal times - these aren't normal times though and decisions are/have been made on which lives to save at the cost of which lives to sacrifice for them.
Brutal I know and apologise for but what else can you do if you simply don't have enough of the stuff needed to save everyone's life?
Scrutiny doesn't achieve much right now I'm afraid, time for recrimination is after the fire is put out and not whilst the house is ablaze.
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