Every NHS worker is vital – and equal – and needs PPE. That includes porters who are also dying

Hearing on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that two porters had died from Covid-19, the devastating illness arising from the corona virus, I sought out the news piece to accompany this reporting. I’ve been married to an #NHS Estates manager for 27 years, so I know that “porter” means much loved person, I was hoping the news piece would too.

I found an article which described two NHS workers dying “and two nurses”. Already the distinction was being made. These two men weren’t being named but their nationality, Filipino, was – as well as the fact that they were married to two nurses. I remember our local trust going to the Philippines and recruiting essential workers during a national nurse shortage, and having been very ill in hospital a few years ago I remember the incredible kindness of both the Filipino nurses who took care of me.

But “support staff” is a catch-all term for anyone in the NHS who isn’t a doctor or a nurse, from ward clerks to plumbers, electricians to catering teams, admin to porters. Support staff I’m sad to observe, seems to mean “less than,” to some people.

My mother and grandmother were nurses. I know and love many doctors, I can tell you that my husband’s presumed “lowly status” has never prevented him being liked and loved by clinicians, colleagues and grateful patients who have benefited from his work and friendship over the years.

Make no mistake about it, support staff are just as dedicated and devoted and are mourned just as deeply as anyone in the NHS during this global crisis.

Being a porter means being on the frontline too. Anyone going to or from theatre or to and from a high-dependency unit (HDU) or ICU, will remember the porter keeping our spirits up and being kind when we’re at our most frightened and vulnerable. Morale and mental health are widely misunderstood, undervalued aspects of good physical health. Everyone who does understand knows it’s vital. Psychology services are an integral aspect of the NHS too.

Every support worker who works in the NHS and social care knows the risks they face better than the rest of us. They see that risk every day as they provide the medical care, personal care and the vital infrastructure that we’re all relying on. Much of this is happening behind the scenes.

Support workers don’t tend to be included in photo opportunities with politicians or documentaries with Ross Kemp. What a kind world it would be if he made a documentary about such NHS staff in this crisis.

The issue of personal protective equipment (PPE) is simple. It should be available to everyone who needs it and that should mean everyone. Whether in acute or psychiatric hospitals & care homes, in the homes of learning-disabled young adults and elderly people, in GP surgeries, in pharmacies, in dental practices and in supermarkets.

All keyworkers are people not statistics. They leave behind families devastated by grief for someone they can never replace. These aren’t vague “support units”. We should learn from the doctors and nurses who are caring for porters and domestics as tenderly and diligently as they are for their clinical colleagues and the prime minister. No one is being ignored or sacrificed, give preferential treatment or refused care.

Nurses and doctors know there is no hierarchy in illness, no privilege in death. We need to learn this from them both for the crisis now and the world we need to see in the months and years to come.

The war analogy is being deployed routinely at the moment. Whilst I don’t necessarily subscribe to it, I would say that the generals aren’t hiding in some safe bunker miles away from danger, they are facing this killer virus alongside all their NHS colleagues.

From doctors to domestic workers, the NHS isn’t divided by their job description, they’re united in a community of service for the nation’s health, standing between us and the virus keeping us safe.

The fee for this piece is being donated to Feed NHS, to help provide food for NHS workers