Scottish COVID-19 inquiry Impact hearing | Health and social care | 20 March 2024
Testimony highlights from The Royal College of Nursing
The first witness to testify was RCN Scotland director Colin Pullman who made repeated claims of healthcare staff being equipped with ’’inadequte PPE’’. You can read more about Mr.Pullman’s testimony in the link below at the bottom of the page.
The second witness to testify for the Royal College of nursing was Mr.Normal Provan, Associate Director for Employment Relations in Scotland (RCN Scotland). Mr Provan qualified as a registered nurse in May 1987. I will focus here on some of Mr.Provan’s points, given those were almost identical to Mr.Pullan around PPE. Mr.Provan also goes into more detail on the effects of the virus on healthcare front-line employees.
Here he explains the total amount of Scottish nurses (he knows about) that are suffering from the effects of ‘Long COVID.’
‘‘We have 35 personal injury cases lodged..we have about 15 more at the moment'‘
So in total to date, 50 cases.
NB: There are approx 70,000 nurses in Scotland that is often repeated by RCN and Mr.Provan who were equipped with wholly ''inadequate PPE'' at risk from disease and death however this rate of illness equates to only 0.07% of the entire nursing workforce contracting’ ‘Long COVID’ over a four year period !
Deaths ‘involving’ COVID-19 in Scottish Nurses 2020-2022
Data held by National Records of Scotland shows only a very small fraction of the nursing workforce (35 or 0.05%) sadly died ‘involving’ COVID-19 over a 3 year period. As can be seen below Scottish nurses were at far greater risk from NON COVID causes of death which is rarely, if ever discussed. Therefore one has to conclude based on the facts at hand that EVEN WITH ‘‘inadequate PPE’’ 99.9% of Scottish nurses have not succumbed to ‘Long COVID’ nor have died from the virus. This would indicate threat of COVID-19 has clearly been exaggerated.
PCR testing
Another interesting point made by Mr.Provan was around testing at the start of pandemic, before and during the first national lockdown. He explains:
'There was no reliable testing at the outset'
'There was NO TEST initially for COVID..people were coming in to hospital ASSUMED to have COVID because of their clinical symptoms'
Given the similarities of COVID-19 vs colds, flus and pneumonia’s and other common ailments could thousands of people have been incorrectly diagnosed ? Worldwide, influenza all but vanished during this time period.
To highlight the Scottish data in this regard the burgundy line (completely flat) is 2020-2021 and when the COVID-19 pandemic was announced. The other two lines are influenza seasons/hospitilisations pre pandemic 2018-2020.
Mr.Provan concludes his witness statement with the following:
‘‘Long Covid, along with the continuing psychological symptoms, being experienced by RCN Scotland members mean that there is large number of the workforce now unabl eto practice. Across the UK, prevalence of Long Covid amongst staff working in healthcare and social care is significantly higher than the wider population. Many RCN members who contracted Long Covid via exposure to Covid-19 at work are now at risk of losing their employment due to ongoing health issues and the lack of workplace support to enable them to remain in employment. We would ask that this be recognised and that measures are put in place to address this.’’
End
Links:
Full statement Mr Normal Provan- https://www.covid19inquiry.scot/sites/default/files/ev-documents/sci-wt0491-000001.pd
Full video-Scottish COVID-19 inquiry Youtube-mpact hearing | Health and social care | 20 March 2024
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/covid-inquiry-mens-masks-given-to-female-nurses/ar-BB1ke6Ww
https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/data-reports/sep-2023/0130d-mid-year-data-report-scotland-web.pdf
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/general-publications/monthly-mortality-analysis-scotland
https://scotland.shinyapps.io/phs-respiratory-covid-19/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/flu-has-disappeared-worldwide-during-the-covid-pandemic1/
Brilliant article 👏
Good work !