To find people's duplicity towards key workers upsetting

[hibbledibble]

On one hand, it's 'clap for carers' and praising NHS staff as 'heroes'.

On the other hand, the amount of vitriol towards key workers who need childcare so they can do their jobs is shocking. In addition, the public that praises us, also ignores lockdown rules, causing even greater strain to the NHS.

I am a doctor, and I was redeployed during the first wave. It was horrific. I am still recovering now, and seeking treatment for PTSD. I have seen many of my colleagues become seriously unwell, and others have died.

We don't want claps (in fact, please don't) but decent, safe working conditions (including proper PPE), and sufficient childcare. I can't work from home, so my children (primary and preschool age) need to be cared for.

I admit I am taking this fairly personally as I have seen first hand the absolute horror that this virus has caused, and have been traumatised by it. My hospital is well over capacity, and people are dying waiting for ventilators.

Surely if your working (both parents) then by definition you are a "key worker" business don't pay people they don't need, they sack them or put them on furlough.....

For me key workers range from NHS/Care workers, staff to anyone one in food processing, cleaners, delivery drivers, warehouse workers, management buying goods, accountants authorising purchases, HMRC staff getting tax bills out...construction workers, people manning the counters and delivering the materials, payroll staff... the list is endless.
Plus many employers are insisting people come in to work.

Easy to criticise folk sending their kids to school but if your amazon parcel doesn't turn up, you'll be the first to complain.

Nobody is begrudging your child a key-worker space at school, and I find it difficult to believe you think they do.

But they do. They think I should have them home with me when I've just come off a 24 hour shift (which always runs long) and have 12 hours to sleep until my next shift. Or I should have them home with me when I am doing admin, which includes phone calls to patients families or dictating notes including details of peoples deaths. They think that because my husband is an essential worker but works from home he should do all the childcare, despite it meaning I wouldn't be able to sleep or do my admin (as they are nearly 2 and almost so need to be in the room with an adult almost all of the time).

Thankfully my kids school doesn't feel the same and have provided a full time, no questions asked placement as they know I work at the hospital. As the school in very near the local large hospital we have a very high number of kids in (proportionally, it's a tiny school even when full).

@Bizawit have you read my post? If so, who are the key worker spaces designed to benefit?

OP, my family have followed guidance very carefully. I hope that media reports of rule breaking are exaggerated (people staying at home doesn't make for a good story)

Thank you for the work you do, and I hope you can get treatment for PTSD

I agree with PP that people are angry about the number of people who falsely claim to be key workers to get their kids into school

One point though, I think pupil numbers should be kept to absolute minimum and we all have a part to play. Are you a single parent, or is your DP/DH also a key worker? If so, then i can't see how anyone could begrudge you a space. However, if you have a DP /DH working from home, then i would argue that your children shouldn't be in school

People's duplicity to one another is always upsetting.

It's why I keep my distance and don't let anyone get too close to me.

Did anyone actually read the list of key workers last time? It has never just been NHS, emergency workers and supermarkets, it has always been a long list of sectors and roles that aren’t necessarily public facing but we still depend on, like government, utilities, legal services, financial services etc. I’ve seen vitriol towards all the key workers who can work from home (which is quite a few) as if they don’t still need childcare which is ridiculous. People have no idea what is required of these jobs and aren’t willing to think about it.

I haven't come across anyone saying the things you describe OP. However I agree with you about the clapping. Imo, instead of saying, Save the NHS, why not say, Invest in the NHS So That Staff Can Do Their Fucking Job Properly. Stuff like, healthy canteen food, free parking, sound-proofed staffrooms with a decent coffee machine and telly, and fresh food in vending machines for out of hours, and much more help with your continuous development (and it's associated costs). Clapping doesn't achieve any of this.

I haven't seen or heard anywhere it has been challenged a NHS worker has key worker status.

There is some challenging of other occupations, some valid challenges and others based on a lack of understanding why an accountant might be critical to continuing business operations/supply chains.

Don't think anyone would envy a frontline NHS job right now regardless of security or pension!!

[quote drspouse]@Bizawit have you read my post? If so, who are the key worker spaces designed to benefit?[/quote]
Sure, but I’d be more sympathetic to that argument if teachers were actually going to school and teaching. I don’t think there is much benefit to children of online teaching tbh. Especially the younger ones. Might as well sack it in 🤷🏼‍♀️

OP I know how you feel. My husband and I are both doctors and this time we’ve had to take up our key worker places in school. I too have been reading the threads and feeling guilty at all the ‘this lockdown will never work if there are too many kids in school comments’. Lots of people are backtracking on here now but I do feel the general feeling here for the last few days has been fairly anti-keyworker and I’ve come away feeling unpatriotic at our use of the hub.

I'm incredibly grateful to all the "critical" workers but it's the number of people (and/or their employers) stretching the key worker definition or using a place because they can not because they need to.

I think another issue is that people who aren't "key" workers can feel they are almost being told that they and their jobs are unimportant. It implies that anyone who doesn't qualify as a key worker is somewhere between a relaxed SAHP to one well-behaved child or an instragram influencer flitting off on holiday.

I would happily be furloughed so I could be at home & devote my time to educating dc. I don't have that option.

I don’t think there is vitriol towards genuine key workers the vitriol ids directed towards the people who quite frankly are not . There is a distinction between essential and key that people seem not to grasp. For example litigation lawyers who almost never go to court being classified as key workers because they are part of the justice system , I am apparently a key worker as an accountant who works about a third of their time for an organisation which does occasional elderly care. These jobs may be essential but in extremis they can be done, the school places should be for people who absolutely cannot .

If the schools are full then it is likely that key workers children will end up in a burst bubble and the real key workers will have no childcare . Also transmission rates won’t fall as quickly

People are angry at folk sending their kids to school.
Yet they’ll be the first bleating if they can’t get a delivery of whatever shite they’re ordering. Or they can’t get a plumber or a boiler fixed. Or an appointment with a vet.
They’ll be livid if their internet goes down or mobile signal crashes.
And yeah, they’d quite like to still watch TV.
Oh and they still want someone wiping their granny’s arse. And making sure she’s fed.
And if someone could drive the taxi to take her to her vaccination.

But yeah. Everyone apart from doctors should stay home and teach their kids.

@hibbledibble

Most of the replies are saying the same thing to you.

No one is begrudging frontline nhs staff KW places, but when classes are over 50%-and increasing day by day- full with pupils who have one parent as a sahp claiming KW places, it creates problems.

What do you think?

Much love and respect coming from me, nursing 40 years, barrier/reverse barrier/isolation, but never worn the full heavy PPE as you guys. 12.5 shifts with no sleep yup, been there, was lucky when I started training my first 2 hospitals had an onsite creche, which you could also use for older kids in school holidays, you paid according to your salary. My last hospital I retired 5 years ago, had one, but the fee to staff were pretty high, keep safe!!

But I know school finance people who are in helping with testing so job description isn't helpful without industry.

I was told on another thread I should be able to do my job from home. People forgot that the public sector is often not remote working friendly & relies on a lot more paper than a similar role in the private sector. I'm not saying it's right but it's how it is & you often cannot take info off site.

I understand why certain private businesses want their workers to take places, they probably need them to work for the company to survive. Also they could insist people come in rather than wfh in order to legitimise their school place but then more people out & about using public transport etc.

A SAHP is not necessarily wrong to want a place if they have 3 dc in KS1 & potentially would need it more than a key worker wfh &/or p/t with a 16 yr old.

I don't think there is an easy answer.

@hibbledibble

Yes - this is the sort of attitude that’s prevalent on Mumsnet. My husband is a child psychiatrist. He has the ability to do some (not all) of his appointments and admin from home. The impression I get from Mumsnet is that because other people are working from home and doing childcare he should be doing his video appointments and writing up notes with our two yr old rampaging in the background. Not sure what he’s supposed to do in an emergency - leave her in the car outside the hospital? Like yours, our school have trusted us to be professional and make the decision regarding how much childcare we need. We’re taking the bare minimum but I’m not going compromise patient treatment because it makes things ‘fair’ in the eyes of Mumsnet.

There was a thread on here a few days ago where lots of people seemed to think a social worker dealing with rape and domestic abuse clients wasn’t eligible for a place because she could make her sensitive phone calls from home!!!

I haven’t seen anything negative about key workers who need childcare sending their child to school
Maybe some people are taking the piss to avoid home schooling their children but the definition of key worker can be a bit woolly. DH is technically a key worker (IT) because he works for the Govt but we have never needed a school place, although when DS was in Primary last year we probably could have got one.
I’m sorry if you have come across this OP but if you have I very much doubt it was aimed at Doctors.

The issue is that not everyone who can fit themselves into the definition of critical worker should in reality have priority for a place, it's very case by case and from reports on here, people are taking the piss.

I've seen IT mentioned a few times - it's very broad! If you're someone who needs to be on-site in a critical sector to maintain IT infrastructure then obviously you need childcare. If your job does deal in part with emergencies but is remote and you have an (NT) 10 year old then you don't. Sometimes dealing with emergencies and a 4 year old, then you probably do.

Similar for teachers - if working from home, have somewhere you can close the door and a 10 year old a teacher doesn't need a school place. The 10 year old can sit on Fortnite all day. It's not great but it is life at the moment. A 4 year old is a different matter and obviously you need childcare with a toddler!

It's really not doctors working in hospitals that people are resenting for having childcare - it's e.g. accountants who WFH with a SAHP, or generally have a SAHP partner or a partner with a non-key worker job who is WFH. People are (understandably) frustrated that even when both parents are WFH or one is a SAHP, if one is a key worker the child gets a school place when the other parent could perfectly feasibly look after them (as all single parents who aren't key workers have to).

As countless others have said, it’s not healthcare staff that people are fed up with- it’s people who are being classed as key workers when they really shouldn’t be, or key workers who can realistically work from home and juggle childcare like the rest of us plebs, but are choosing not to.

My friend does an HR admin role for an infrastructure company. Furloughed during the last lockdown so clearly not key to the organisation’s covid response. Is apparently a key worker now, thinks she shouldn’t have to work around childcare as a result of this (even though she quite clearly could), and is therefore taking a place. Her DC are taking up a school place, and could ultimately infect another key worker child, taking that key worker out of circulation. That’s what people are fed up about.

I know a GP & detective who are both p/t who wfh & got places. Is that ok?

@ArtichokeAardvark

No-one has any issue with a doctor's children going to school, especially if you have no other childcare. I do however judge my neighbour who is merrily sending in her kids when her husband works in management for a major supermarket (not a driver, admits himself he can do a lot from home) and she is a SAHP.

SAHP issue aside, I should imagine the management of food supply is reasonably essential always right now and it probably needs his full attention, particularly with covid and Brexit related logistics complications.

If we want to take it back the the core critical NHS workers...doctors and nurses need to eat and supermarket management direct food to their plate.

@HelloMissus

People are angry at folk sending their kids to school. Yet they’ll be the first bleating if they can’t get a delivery of whatever shite they’re ordering. Or they can’t get a plumber or a boiler fixed. Or an appointment with a vet. They’ll be livid if their internet goes down or mobile signal crashes. And yeah, they’d quite like to still watch TV. Oh and they still want someone wiping their granny’s arse. And making sure she’s fed. And if someone could drive the taxi to take her to her vaccination.

But yeah. Everyone apart from doctors should stay home and teach their kids.

This 100%