Michael Gove was confronted by a frontline NHS doctor who furious let rip at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s claims the government “did all they could” during the coronavirus pandemic.
Palliative care physician Dr Rachel Clarke, who treats patients on the frontline with Covid-19, earlier told Good Morning Britain hosts Susanna Reid and Ben Shephard that she was “sickened” by the remarks.
Appearing on GMB later on in the programme, the MP was forced to watch Dr Clarke’s passionate response and was asked to comment.
Initially, Gove failed to answer the question and said that he was “full of admiration” for those like Rachel on the frontline.
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But he was pressed again by the hosts to answer her criticisms more directly, and he responded: “There are lessons to be learnt and we are learning them in real time about how to improve our response-“
Susanna interjected: “What would you have changed, Mr Gove? What would you have changed early on?”
“I would say that if you looked at other countries as well, and I’m not suggesting for a moment that our death toll is anything other than heartrending, but if you look at other countries we have learnt from them as well.”
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Earlier, Dr Clarke was asked how it was at work during the second wave: “It’s heartbreakingly bad now, it’s so much worse than the first wave.
“Staff are running on empty, they’re broken. They have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the first time round, sometimes colleagues can express suicidal thoughts this time round because it’s so hard.
“The hospitals are full to breaking point. Often the patients seem younger and at times we have patients in their 20s and 30s in intensive care. Pregnant women are intensive care with no other illnesses, just coronavirus.
“Sometimes we will see three generations – a grandparent, a mum and a son – all of them in intensive care. They mixed at Christmas and literally three generations you see them die, one after the other and that is unimaginably bad.
“Before Christmas, we were screaming from the rooftops, ‘Please lock down properly’ and it didn’t happen so here we are now with nearly 100,000 deaths in Britain, an unimaginable number. I think part of the trauma for staff is this feeling that it didn’t need to be like that.”
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Responding to her heartbreaking account, Ben asked: “So with that in mind, when you hear Boris Johnson say ‘We’ve done everything we can’, how does that make you and your colleagues feel?”
She replied: “I was absolutely sickened when I heard him say that because it was patently and obviously a lie. He didn’t lockdown promptly, he didn’t close down our borders, he didn’t protect our care homes, he threw vulnerable people to the wolves in care homes. He didn’t do any of the things first time round that would have helped.
“But worse, he made the same mistakes the second time round. And all of us, as doctors, are used to making difficult decisions and having to look people in the eye and say, ‘I’m sorry, I have to tell you you’re loved one is dying.’
“We can’t shirk that – that’s leadership, that’s being tough and doing a good job. Boris Johnson stands up in front of the cameras and doesn’t even have the decency to brush his hair and he looks the country in the eye and doesn’t tell the truth. He tells us what we think we want to hear and be popular instead of what’s right.
“And I can’t forgive him for that because that failure of character is having a cost of tens of thousands of lives and we are seeing these people die.”
*Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV
Originally from https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/michael-gove-confronted-furious-nhs-23399492