MIKE HILL: Remember the dead and fight for the living

Thankfully the number of fatalities remains low in our Trust area compared to others, but we must not be complacent; we must stick to the rules in order to save lives, look after each other and protect NHS heroes, like my friend who was on the frontline.

On Tuesday of this week it was International Workers Memorial Day on which we commemorate and remember those who have sadly lost their lives or have been injured at work, and highlight the preventable nature of most workplace incidents and ill health. The slogan for the day is ‘Remember the dead and fight for the living’. Every year the Hartlepool Trades Union Council organises a popular event at Christ Church on Church Street, which includes a wreath laying ceremony, guest speakers and a health and safety seminar hosted by Hartlepool FE College. For obvious reasons this years’ service, like many others across the world and up and down the country, was cancelled, and so, like others, I stood for a minutes silence at 11am to remember the fallen.

That was a moment made more poignant by the fact that the very thing that had prevented the ceremony going ahead, Coronavirus, was itself adding to the toll of people dying as a result of simply going to work and doing their job; which is why I make no apologies for chasing down unsafe working practices in industrial and other work settings and banging on about PPE during this crisis.

The biggest and saddest irony is, of course, that those whose job it is to protect us, look after us and heal us are at the greatest risk; since the 25th March this year there have been 78 officially confirmed deaths amongst NHS Workers, 93 according to other sources with a further 20 as yet to be confirmed. These NHS heroes have sacrificed their own lives in order to save others. And those left behind keep on looking after us, stoically determined to get us through this pandemic, and in the wider care sector, in our care homes and care settings we see this repeated.

I am personally grateful to all our key workers for carrying out their frontline duties during this crisis and to those employed on our hospital wards, in our care homes and our paramedics on the frontline. I will be out there on the doorstep applauding you again tonight.

Today is the 100th birthday of NHS Champion fundraiser Captain Tom Moore, a remarkable man, an inspiration to us all and a man who was there when the NHS was created on the 5th July 1948. Long live Captain Tom and long live our NHS.

Stay home, save lives, protect our NHS.