Ex-public health boss shares fury over "inadequate" PPE stocks with James O'Brien
14 April 2020, 14:02 | Updated: 14 April 2020, 19:41
"What is happening is incompetence" Disgusted ex-public health boss tells James O'Brien
The government's effort to provide PPE to health workers have been described as "incompetent" by the former president of the Faculty of Public Health
Professor Dr. John Ashton joined James O'Brien where the pair discussed the plight of nurses and doctors in the NHS that are exposed to coronavirus daily because of a lack of protective equipment.
The Royal College of Nurses urged workers on Sunday that they should refuse to treat people if they haven't been provided PPE. James wanted to know what Professor Ashton thought of the recommendation.
The doctor began by stressing that he's never been an advocate for nurses going on strike, but he noted that he believes that it is horrendous to put clinical workers in that position of having to choose between their life and a patient's.
He added that "doctors and nurses work in troubled spots all over the world" and are met with adversity when they go to impoverished places, but they shouldn't be expected to do the same when fighting such a dangerous disease in a country with the infrastructure of the UK especially "when its happening as a seeming incompetence".
Dr. Ashton was disgusted with the policy of sending medical staff to combat coronavirus without the adequate equipment.
"For us to willingly send them forward to the front line" the former President of the Faculty of Public Health began, is unthinkable and to see it as common practice is a disgrace.
James wanted to know the professor's opinion of Priti Patel's apology at the government's coronavirus press conference on Sunday, of which he branded a "mealy-mouthed non-apology"
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