Daily Times

The UK government has been under pressure to apologise to the families of those NHS workers who have died protecting the British people from the COVID-19.

Doctors’ associations and medical staff have been advising the government and the Health trusts that employ them about the insufficient Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) available for them to safely carry out their work in saving lives and to guard them from the deadly virus.

A Bangladeshi consultant Dr Abdul Mabud Choudhury was the first to highlight the issue on social media by posting a message on Facebook on the 18 March, which was directed at Prime Minister Boris Johnson about the lack of PPE. Choudhury, 53 was symptom free at the time, 5 days later he tested positive and died within a week of his message to the PM after contracting the virus while working at the Homerton University Hospital in East London. A further blow to his family – who were devout Muslims – was that they were not allowed to attend his funeral. Now Choudhury’s 18 years old son Intisar Choudhury has been calling on the government to offer a public apology to the families of healthcare workers who have died due to the coronavirus.

Speaking to the BBC, Intisar demanded that government should make a public apology to acknowledge the mistakes they made, to accept them and then move on from them. He said that speaking to and on the behalf of the majority of the public “we are not expecting perfection but we are expecting progression”. Something his father had also said. He also said they did not expect the government to make every decision perfectly calculated with no error as he believe that this has not been possible in the pandemic. British Heath Secretary Matt Hancock on Wednesday told the parliament that 108 NHS and social care workers have lost their lives due to the virus. Official figures confirms that over 60% of them were from the Black , Asian minority ethnic communities and it is believed that this number will grow.

The government says they are working to support the NHS and announced a compensation of £60,000 for the families of those staff who died due to the pandemic. Similarly, on Tuesday people across the UK observed one minute silence to pay tribute and remember all those on frontline services who have died including cares, cleaners, porters and bus drivers. The UK Home Secretary confirmed on Wednesday that the government’s one-year extension of visa apply to all NHS staff including support staff such as porters, cleaner, student who are now working in NHS frontline as well as the bank staff currently working for the NHS.

Health campaigners and union groups are calling on the government to do more for those heroes including offering British citizenship for their families and a full pension. They saying that after all they had contributed fully into supporting the NHS and supported the government funded pension schemes.

This newspaper and UK’s leading lawyer Barrister Khadim Al’ Hassan initiated a campaign for ‘the British government to announce financial assistance and support for the families of all NHS staff especially those from abroad, starting with help to cover funeral costs and maintenance. Last week on 24 March, Daily times (DT) published a story over the government delay in offering financial support to NHS hero’s families. This was followed by demands from the British Medical Association (BMA) expressing its growing frustration over the Government’s failure to guarantee the families of healthcare workers who lose their lives during the fight against COVID-19 will be financially supported in these tragic circumstances.

The BMA demanded from the government to answer their call for all healthcare workers to receive full death in service benefits available under the NHS pension scheme, regardless of their length of service or whether they are a current member of the NHS Pension Scheme or not.

However, when the government announced the compensation scheme for the families on Wednesday, an official of British government contacted this correspondent to brief about the policy and also thanked Daily Times for highlighting the issue.