Angels and Demons

Some time ago, when Jackie Baillie was Shadow Health Minister, Calton took a pop at her for being overweight in a blog post entitled Where Angels Fear to Tread... Well, Jackie is looking pretty angelic now in comparison with current Health Minister Jeane Freeman.

This is the woman who (deliberately in Calton's opinion) tried to mislead the Scottish Parliament over the number of NHS patients transferred from hospitals to care homes at the start of the Covid-19 crisis. She had to apologise. Nicola Sturgeon made excuses for her, saying that she was 'tired'.

Under Freeman's direction the Scottish Government bought up care home beds in order to empty hospital wards. What they failed to do was to ensure that the care homes had adequate PPE and adequate staff to deal with a highly infectious respiratory virus. It took weeks and numerous awkward questions from journalists at Sturgeon's daily briefings before Jeane got her act together with respect to PPE for care homes. At time of writing, the Scottish Government has still not got its act together with respect to regular testing of care home staff, in spite of Nicola Sturgeon announcing two weeks ago that this would happen. Freeman has also still not sorted out the problem of care home staff having to survive on statutory sick pay if they test positive.

Early Scottish Government guidance to care homes and the GPs who look after them said that it was not advised that patients with Covid-19 should be transferred to hospital but be cared for in the care home.  This was subsequently amended but only after the Scottish Government realised that the general population actually care about their old folks and want them to receive the best of care, including hospital treatment when required. How many care home residents could have survived the virus if the early guidance had not stipulated that they be refused transfer to hospital? The blanket issuing of DNRs (Do Not Resuscitate notices) in care homes, sometimes to people without capacity to agree them is also a real cause for concern.

Freeman has defended her actions in the ongoing coronavirus care home deaths scandal, saying that she did her best with the information available at the time. Even if this is true, her best was not good enough. People have died on her watch, some of them unnecessarily. Surely that is grounds for her resignation. Sadly there is no-one of Jackie Baillie's calibre in the SNP to replace Jeane.

PS. When she became Health Minister Jeane said she was going to lead by example and give up the fags. Is she still smoke-free?