My A&E shifts during Covid-19 pandemic still bring tears to my eyes – Dr Rosena Allin-Khan

How many families are going to have empty chairs and place settings for their lost loved ones? How many presents will be left unexchanged? How many tears will be shed for the warm embraces that were missed last year?

Boris Johnson’s Christmas party ‘lies’ betray virus victims and destroy trust – The Yorkshire Post says

But while we all stuck to the lockdown rules, parties were being held at Downing Street as if Covid didn’t exist.

We now know that three weeks of planning went into the big Number 10 Christmas party last December.

My children did not see their dying dad while Downing Street held Christmas party and mocked us – Jayne Dowle

These are the same three weeks during which our towns and cities were locking down, families were cancelling their plans and thousands of people were losing their lives to Covid-19.

By trade, I am an A&E doctor, and throughout the pandemic, I worked shifts in A&E and Intensive Care.

Confronted with the Prime Minister’s bare-faced lies, I told him in Parliament this week how I wept behind my mask during one shift.

For as long as I live, I shall never forget taking an iPad to a young mother in intensive care who was suffering complications from Covid.

She was dying, and on the video call were her three young children, all shouting “Mummy, Mummy, wake up, you’ve been asleep too long”.

It still brings tears to my eyes. Examples like this were not unique. Every shift brought pain and heartache on behalf of so many families.

Our Intensive Care Units were packed with the most vulnerable and our key workers.

Front-line NHS staff were having painful conversations day in, day out.

They were also happening in our care homes. Loved ones waving goodbyes from the street, simply in the hope that their relative could feel their love one last time.

Covid stripped the humanity out of grieving, but I am immensely proud of the work we did to support people in their darkest days.

It hurts, deeply and personally, to think of the Prime Minister’s flagrant disregard of the rules under his own roof.

It is an insult to everyone who followed the rules, and it is an insult to everyone who was robbed of the chance to say goodbye to a dying loved one. Such scars never heal.

While I was in PPE, supporting families saying their final goodbyes, the Government was partying in Downing Street.

How many times can a Prime Minister and a Government get away with breaking so many rules without facing any consequences?

At a time when the Government was encouraging people to snitch on their neighbours, it was covering up parties.

When gatherings were being broken up across the country, Number 10 was sending out invites.

And while people are now sitting in court, accused of throwing illegal gatherings, the police have refused to investigate rule breaking at the heart of our government.

The Government behave as if it is one rule for them, and one rule for everyone else.

How can the Prime Minister sleep at night, knowing that this happened under his watch, at his house?

We still have a long way to go to get to grips with this virus, and it is looking like a hard winter ahead.

Our front-line health and care staff are bruised and broken – we have been crying out for help, only to have the Government ignore our pleas.

What certainly fails our collective national effort is the Government saying one thing, and doing another.

New measures will be flawed from the start if people see those in positions of power doing exactly as they please while they themselves make huge 
sacrifices.

Being an MP for my community, where I grew up and where I am lucky enough to be raising my own family, is the greatest privilege of my life.

But being a doctor is who I am at my core. From working these two roles during the pandemic, I can see the great divide that has emerged, and it is our hard-working key workers that are losing out.

I want to pay tribute and say thank you to everyone who has kept our country going over the last two years: shop workers, bus drivers, health and care staff, teachers, council workers and many more.

It is their hard work that has kept us going, and will be ultimately, what gets us through this, not the Government.

It is sacrifice that has united many of us across the country. This is why the parties in Number 10 are a slap in the face of the collective effort we were all a part of.

The Government loved invoking the Blitz spirit when it suited them, but when it really mattered, they abandoned their own rules for drinks and Secret Santa.

As much as the Government tries to deny these parties, they happened on the Prime Minister’s watch – he is a national disgrace. Our country deserves better.

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan is a Labour MP and Shadow Mental Health Minister.

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