Heroic: NHS students go into battle without PPE – The Yorkshire Post says

A moment to remember the 100-plus health and care staff who have now lost their lives fighting this virus, the grimmest of milestones in the saddest of times, it allows the county – and country – to show respect to those who are willing to risk their health to try to save lives and others.

People like the former medics who have come out of retirement to the early deployment of 400 students and staff from the University of Bradford so they can take up frontline medical roles and ensure the NHS is best placed to treat new patients.

One of many universities and medical schools to release students from their studies, it is testament to the desire of these young people to care for others, and their wider humanity, that they’re also so willing to do so in the knowledge that they may not be equipped with the necessary PPE protective clothing and equipment.

A failure of policy now overshadowing the Government’s wider response to the pandemic, this scandal – and it is a word that The Yorkshire Post always uses advisedly – is the NHS equivalent of British soldiers having to buy their own equipment before going into battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It’s that serious and it is why all those working in the region’s hospitals, care homes and, of course the new Nightingale Hospital in Harrogate, deserve our thanks – and prayers – as they enter the unknown and treat those struck down with a devastating disease now close to claiming its 20,000th life in a UK hospital.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

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