REEL NEWS – A SOLIDARITY MESSAGE TO ALL HEALTHWORKERS AND SOCIAL CARE WORKERS
Reel News are acutely aware that health workers are going to need a hell of a lot of support from the rest of us in the coming weeks and months. Years of austerity from the Tories has left the NHS woefully underresourced to deal with the worsening coronavirus crisis, and there are still 44,000 nursing vacancies in Britain.
They are going to be under tremendous strain, both physical and emotional, and some of them won’t make it through this alive.
So we want to give a voice to health workers to be able to explain what they’re going through, to vent their feelings when it all gets too much and tell the rest of us what they need in terms of support and solidarity – whether it’s messages of support, things that would make their job easier, organising mass applause for health workers every night as they’re doing in Italy, Spain and France, or even simply sending chocolate and cakes to help them get through their shifts.
Obviously we can’t come out and film like we normally do – but if you’re a health worker and you want to have a voice, film yourself on your phone (in landscape, not portrait, but don’t worry if you forget), see if any of your workmates want to do it too, send us the footage (we can help you with all this if you’re not sure how to do it) and we’ll edit the footage together to make a video for your local hospital. We can then send you a film back to check and when you’re happy with it, we can all use it to help make sure you’re supported and loved throughout what is going to be an incredibly difficult time.
You are our frontline troops now – the rest of us need to make it a huge priority to look after you.
We are also aware that this is going to be a very difficult time for social care workers too, so same offer … if you want to send us footage, we’ll make videos for you too.
And to everyone else, if you want to make their jobs easier straight away, practise social distancing NOW and keep at least 2 metres away from each other!
