To disagree with NHS only petrol stations?

[pistachio20]

Some petrol stations around me have now said that they are only allowing in NHS staff to refuel - apparently checking ID.

I find this completely ridiculous and unfair - not only because the majority of NHS staff where I live can easily get public transport to work (most who I know don’t drive to work anyway, and get train/bus anyway due to lack of free parking!).

So many crucial jobs require people to drive, let alone people with caring responsibilities, mobility issues, etc.

AIBU to think that it’s unfair?

YANBU. Vets, firefighters, policemen, carers, lorry drivers, tradesmen and many other occupations all need access to fuel.

Agreed ibelieveinghosts.
This is why humanity will die out from climate change. We rely heavily on fossil fuels and cannot cope without cars for 5 minutes. The amount of horror about not having foreign holidays was immense.

@clara443

I lost all respect for NHS workers when there was a queue of THREE people at Aldi and someone showed up, flashed their NHS badge and pushed in.

it was a five minuet queue...

This pandemic has taught me that everyone is essential and should be treated fairly!

Yep my area was full of those as well jumping infront of a queue with four people in it all of whom were pensioners

@MatildaIThink it would be a disaster for me not getting to work and losing money. Already faced redundancy earlier in the pandemic and barely keeping above water as it is. Don’t think you can tell me how my situation is because you have no idea. Not getting to work and earning money could be a disaster for a lot of people especially in these times.
I think yes, make sure emergency vehicles have fuel but other than that if everyone just calmed down and bought fuel as normal we wouldn’t even be facing such a ridiculous situation in the first place

@malificent7

Agreed ibelieveinghosts. This is why humanity will die out from climate change. We rely heavily on fossil fuels and cannot cope without cars for 5 minutes. The amount of horror about not having foreign holidays was immense.

It's not just cars, though is it?

Lots of public transport is fossil fuelled. Most lorries are fossil fuelled. Most trades/emergency vehicles are fossil fuelled.

It's easy to take the easy option and blame cars, but basically everyone and everything that has to move is done so mainly by fossil fuel at the moment.

The "real" answer isn't renewables, it's localism. I.e. we need a massive push to get people to go to schools, shops, jobs and recreation, much closer to where they live, and start manufacturing "things" closer to where the consumers live. Just look at the hue and cry about city centres suffering due to people working from home, and the "push" to get people back to working in offices etc - we should be using WFH as an opportunity to cut emissions and yes, reduce public transport if there's lower demand. We need to reverse the centralisation of jobs into a few large cities and get back to employers having regional depots/offices etc so more people can work closer to where they live.

@Belladonna12

Whilst NHS staff should not be the only people to get priority of course they should have priority. Arguing that would mean NHS admin staff will take all the petrol is ridiculous. The great majority of people wouldn't abuse the system and if they were working at home they wouldn't take the petrol. When I worked for the NHS, the majority of people used public transport to get to work anyway because the wasn't enough parking for everyone. Those that drive really needed to in contrast to many of the others insisting they can only get to work by car.

You must be joking when you say the "majority wouldn't abuse the system". Abuse was rife of the NHS priority in supermarkets last year, and remains rife for the likes of NHS discounts for pizzas and other takeaways. Our neighbour, a NHS GP surgery practice manager, offered to do our shopping for us last year to get the discount, she regularly gets takeaways delivered for her other neighbours to get the discount. With covid jabs, she got her whole family booked in weeks/months before they became eligible and offered to get us booked in sooner too.

Not this bollocks again! How many more days of lost income can the average and not-so-priviledged family sustain, do you think? Millions of people have already not been able to work for months because of Covid, homeschooling, businesses being forced to shut... This current crisis is not even down to "nature" unlike the virus, but down to poor decision-making and lack of forward-planning by the Tories. People aren't prepared to suck it up any more!

[quote Hoorayhenryyah]@MatildaIThink it would be a disaster for me not getting to work and losing money. Already faced redundancy earlier in the pandemic and barely keeping above water as it is. Don’t think you can tell me how my situation is because you have no idea. Not getting to work and earning money could be a disaster for a lot of people especially in these times.
I think yes, make sure emergency vehicles have fuel but other than that if everyone just calmed down and bought fuel as normal we wouldn’t even be facing such a ridiculous situation in the first place[/quote]
My whole point is that emergency services should get preference, otherwise people will die. I also did not try to tell you how your situation is, other than all of us who are not emergency services and critical workers (not "key" workers) it is not life and death if we do not get fuel, it is not life and death if we don't pay our mortgages or even have to sell our homes. Whilst there is a supply issue it makes sense to prioritise those who if we do not prioritise them then lives will be lost.

I agree that the problem is with the panic buying idiots, unfortunately as much of the last six years has proven, we need to learn to live with the idiots and manage the consequences of their actions where possible.

@ichundich

Not this bollocks again! How many more days of lost income can the average and not-so-priviledged family sustain, do you think? Millions of people have already not been able to work for months because of Covid, homeschooling, businesses being forced to shut... This current crisis is not even down to "nature" unlike the virus, but down to poor decision-making and lack of forward-planning by the Tories. People aren't prepared to suck it up any more!

In response to @Matilda.

@MatildaIThink It is life and death if our power stations can’t operate because of a lack of staff, many of them can’t legally operate without a certain number of staff members being there Without electricity the NHS won’t be able to save lives.

It's yet again one big middle finger to all the other essential workers🙄

My mother is a carer (not NHS) and reckons she's got about 3 days of fuel left in her car max. Without her car she cannot get to work; she cares for several older/disabled people, 5 days a week. Her colleagues will be in a similar position. She also is on a zero hours contract and if she doesn't work, she doesn't get paid. NHS-only seems unfair and blinkered, unless they mean ambulances only or something on that level.

You must be joking when you say the "majority wouldn't abuse the system". Abuse was rife of the NHS priority in supermarkets last year, and remains rife for the likes of NHS discounts for pizzas and other takeaways. Our neighbour, a NHS GP surgery practice manager, offered to do our shopping for us last year to get the discount, she regularly gets takeaways delivered for her other neighbours to get the discount. With covid jabs, she got her whole family booked in weeks/months before they became eligible and offered to get us booked in sooner too.

NHS discounts are offered to all NHS workers so they aren't abusing the system by using the discount. That is entirely different to offering petrol to NHS workers only if they need it to get to the hospital or GP practice and someoone using it even if they are working at home.
As far as Covid jabs were concerned, I bet she was putting them on the list to get jabs at the end of the day rather than waste them. Would you prefer the jabs were thrown away?

People in UK really need to stop almost fetishising NHS and the staff.
It's a basic healthcare system like in many other places. Working in it doesn't make someone so special they should have a priority over everyone else in basically any shitty situation🙄

@MatildaIThink But how many people should suffer serious consequences to save a life? Is it fair to expect some people to lose their homes, their livelihoods and businesses to save the lives of other random people? If so, how is it fair that "some" people are protected by their jobs or benefit system so that they don't lose their homes, their livelihoods or their businesses, whilst others are thrown to the wolves and risk losing everything they have? Surely, there needs to be fairness and parity as to who loses and who doesn't when it comes to saving lives of random strangers?

@Wazzzzzzzup

People in UK really need to stop almost fetishising NHS and the staff. It's a basic healthcare system like in many other places. Working in it doesn't make someone so special they should have a priority over everyone else in basically any shitty situation🙄

I don't think many are "fetishising" the NHS, but taking the pragmatic view that it is better that people who have "normal" jobs stay at home, which may or may not mean some kind of hardship, than doctors, nurses, pharmacists etc. stay at home and people die.

Many NHS staff have to get into work at anti-social hours. Of course there are some people who work from home or get buses but there are many who can't. It's not about pandering to those people, it's about keeping our most essential services running. I'd be in favour of prioritizing many of the most essential workers if needs by. I work in a ward. We are putting desparate measures in place to get staff into work. Because if we don't people will die.

@Belladonna12

You must be joking when you say the "majority wouldn't abuse the system". Abuse was rife of the NHS priority in supermarkets last year, and remains rife for the likes of NHS discounts for pizzas and other takeaways. Our neighbour, a NHS GP surgery practice manager, offered to do our shopping for us last year to get the discount, she regularly gets takeaways delivered for her other neighbours to get the discount. With covid jabs, she got her whole family booked in weeks/months before they became eligible and offered to get us booked in sooner too.

NHS discounts are offered to all NHS workers so they aren't abusing the system by using the discount. That is entirely different to offering petrol to NHS workers only if they need it to get to the hospital or GP practice and someoone using it even if they are working at home.
As far as Covid jabs were concerned, I bet she was putting them on the list to get jabs at the end of the day rather than waste them. Would you prefer the jabs were thrown away?

It IS abuse when she was using the discount system to buy shopping for people who didn't work for the NHS, and we're not talking vulnerable friends/family/neighbours - we're talking about people perfectly able to do their own shopping.

Re covid jabs, no they were proper appointments at all times of the day. She kept offering to do it for us, but we declined. She said she could just "tick the box" on the system to mark us down as vulnerable and then the system would send a link for us to make an appointment.

I wouldn't use my NHS ID to get preferential access to fuel, because I don't need fuel to fulfil my WfH role.

@malificent7

I hope none of you have heart attacks, strokes or accidents in the next few weeks...those unworthy NHS staff will have to deal with you.

I hope none of those hospitals run on electricity, or that the NHS workers have kids that go to schools because those are the industries my partner and I work in, and if we can't fuel either we can't go in either.

YANBU.
We're going back to the days of people debating how 'key' a keyworker you are and if you are enough of a keyworker to deserve a school place for your kids.

By this argument an NHS admin worker from our village (which has no bus service) is allowed to buy fuel and go to work booking non-essential appointments, but an unemployed mum of a disabled child cannot buy fuel to take the child to an essential hospital appointment.

Do we need a scales of how important a key worker we are? "Oh you're only on Level 4! You need to be a Level 5 to buy diesel!"

@Feilin don’t be so ridiculous, there are plenty of people who need to get to work. My husband is a solider and does essential work, people’s lives would be at risk if he didn’t turn up. What about supermarket workers, bus drivers, farmers and nursery workers.

I have no idea why a select few NHS workers think that the rest of the population should worship the ground they walk on, all because they are doing the job they are paid for.

@Reachersloveinterest

YANBU. We're going back to the days of people debating how 'key' a keyworker you are and if you are enough of a keyworker to deserve a school place for your kids.

By this argument an NHS admin worker from our village (which has no bus service) is allowed to buy fuel and go to work booking non-essential appointments, but an unemployed mum of a disabled child cannot buy fuel to take the child to an essential hospital appointment.

Do we need a scales of how important a key worker we are? "Oh you're only on Level 4! You need to be a Level 5 to buy diesel!"

No, we just need to start applying restraint and common sense. And if people can't behave sensibly, then the Govt needs to step in and impose rationing/limits on everyone.

At the end of the day, there is no shortage. It's idiots panic buying that have caused this, and it WILL all be over in a few days. Panic buying idiots can't keep filling their cars that are already full can they? It's a "blip" and will pass once all the idiots have filled their cars and don't need to fill them again for another week or two.

I don't think many are "fetishising" the NHS, but taking the pragmatic view that it is better that people who have "normal" jobs stay at home, which may or may not mean some kind of hardship, than doctors, nurses, pharmacists etc. stay at home and people die.

There are millions of people who cannot stay at home. And I don't mean just that they would lose wages.