The virus does not discriminate, but WE do.

GScene is publishing this commentary from our regular columnist Dr Hall, a GP working in Brighton & Hove.

A damning piece in the Sunday Times hangs BoJo out to dry and rightly so. But it isn’t just him. People who object are saying he was listening to the scientists, who are saying they were warning the government much earlier than when action was finally taken. There is mud slinging everywhere with necessary politicization of this pandemic. Everyone desperately wants to find someone to blame, as long as it isn’t themselves.

The problem is we are all culpable here. Whatever your politics, regardless of who/what could have been done better and when, we are ALL collectively guilty of failure to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Elderly, people with dementia and learning disabilities, the socially isolated, homeless, mentally ill, undocumented, those who are BAME or differently abled, LGBT people, people of different religious persuasions, and many other minority groups are disadvantaged in these times.

The virus does not discriminate, but WE do. Society does. Our “free” healthcare system is set up to favour those who are white, wealthy and well. It works for those who can articulate and manipulate. Attempts to make the NHS more inclusive are largely ignored in the higher echelons so that boardrooms and decision making bodies do not represent the population they serve, and the same is largely true in other public sector organizations such as the civil service and parliament. Lip service is paid to diversity by ensuring quotas of women and people of different ethnicity but this is only scratching the surface.

In a country upheld for and proud of its welfare state, we are failing miserably to care for those who need care most. The poverty gap is widening and healthcare inequalities with it. Educational achievement follows the same trajectory. Only the wealthier can afford to move house in order to gain admission to a better school.

What this virus is showing us, and it really hurts, is how unfair we are to people who are deemed less useful, whose lives are not as valuable, or whose contribution is financially draining. We have ALL bought into a capitalist model that necessarily rewards the haves and continues to punish the have nots.

It was ever thus.

Until we are humble enough to accept our collective guilt and take collective action, blame will continue to do the rounds, taking people out one at a time, starting at the top.

If Boris doesn’t have some sort of metanoia along with his cabinet and those who have advised, them there is little hope for the rest of us…

Dr S. Hall MBBS, FRCA, MRCGP