A rant...

This week has not been a good week, and it is only Thursday! In fact, I had already started my next blog post to describe what I have been experiencing, but a new emotion has taken over – anger! I haven’t experienced much anger since B died, but it emerged today when reading a summary of the Sue Gray report and the goings-on in Downing Street. Not that I haven’t been aware of all this already, but the report just cements my feelings about it all.

In the ten months before he died, other than me and health and social care professionals, B only saw six other people, and each of those only once. He didn’t even see his immediate family, except on Zoom. B was happy with the treatment he received during lockdown, but the majority of his appointments happened over the telephone and this meant that he was not assessed as he would have been if he had been seen in clinic, though I don’t think this affected the overall outcome. It was very evident that some elements of his care weren’t as good as they would have been in ordinary circumstances. When B was in the hospice for two weeks, I was only able to visit him for two hours a day (ordinarily, I would have been able to visit at any time of day or night, and for how ever long he or I wanted), and he was largely limited to his room as interactions with other patients were not possible and no social activities were happening. Consequently, he had a very different hospice experience to that of non-pandemic times, and he didn’t find his stay a positive one. Only ten people attended his funeral service at the crematorium, and the main Service of Thanksgiving had to be online, rather than in-person. Lockdown also meant that after had B died, the only people I saw for 3 months were the people who came to the crematorium, my sister whilst she stayed with me for the services, and the friends who I ‘bubbled’ with. My first three months of grieving was very different to how it would have been pre-pandemic. And please don’t misunderstand me, we just accepted that all this was necessary because of covid.

I don’t feel bitter about any of this. B and I both felt lockdown was the right thing for the country and we were willing to abide by it. Indeed, B was at very great risk should he have contracted covid, and he probably would have ended up dying in hospital, alone. We were protecting ourselves and others. Indeed, for us, some things actually made life a little easier, for example, not having to go to hospital once a month, which was exhausting for both of us, but especially so for B. We were also fortunate that I was able to use my professional knowledge to keep B at home, which might not have happened otherwise. Lockdown was hard, very hard at times, but compared to many, many other people we were so very fortunate. My heart bleeds for all those who were not able to be with their loved ones when they were dying, and I can completely understand why some say they wished they had disobeyed the restrictions, that they had stayed with their relative when they died and had just accepted a fine. Who wouldn’t?

So many people made such great sacrifices, and yet these sacrifices seem to mean nothing to those in power. How can our government have shown so little respect to the people they are meant to serve? And continue to do so? How could they ignore restrictions that they themselves had instigated? How can drinking alcohol at work meetings be deemed acceptable when they are, supposedly, ruling our nation? How can they so clearly lie and yet still be in position? It makes me angry!

Rant over…