It’s Time to Honor a New Version of ‘the Few’
Opinion
By George O’Brien
There have been more than a few references to World War II during the COVID-19 crisis, and with good reason. Actually, several reasons.
Like that war itself, the fight against the virus is a truly global conflict with a number of ‘fronts,’ if you will, and all kinds of references to the ‘front lines’ of this pandemic. But there’s more, including everything from comparisons to life on the so-called home front to the need to create another “arsenal of democracy,” as Franklin Roosevelt called the effort to produce everything that was needed to properly fight that global war.
Here’s one more, and it’s certainly poignant. It was almost 80 years ago (Aug. 20, 1940 was the specific date) when Winston Churchill uttered those famous words, “never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
He was referring, of course, to the pilots of the Royal Air Force (RAF), who were, in many ways, all that stood between England and capitulation to Germany. Churchill’s remarks, often quoted and misquoted over the ensuring decades, have been etched onto everything from statues to refrigerator magnets (I know, because I have one — a magnet, not a statue).
And those pilots came to known simply — and famously — as ‘the few.’
We recall, or should recall, Churchill, his words, and those pilots, because in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, there is a new ‘few.’ They are the healthcare workers on those aforementioned front lines of this crisis. There are far more of them than there were RAF pilots in 1940, to be sure, but the analogy works.
And so do Churchill’s words. Perhaps never have so many owed so much to so few.
Indeed, there’s a reason why people in Spain, Italy, and now some parts of this country can be seen on those videos making their way around the internet, opening their apartment windows and the front doors to their homes and clapping for the people who are not just fighting to save lives, but risking their own lives in the process.
There are many emerging heroes in this COVID-19 fight — from those who donate food to the hungry to those who bring some form of companionship to those shuttered inside; from the governors fighting for ventilators to the parents simply trying to help educate their children at home.
But the real heroes are the first responders and those at the hospitals, nursing homes, triage centers, testing operations, and emergency rooms. They’re risking their own health to care for those in need. And they’re doing it, in many cases, without the needed equipment, during long shifts, and at a time when many providers are actually asking them to take pay cuts as those facilities suffer steep losses in revenue.
And this is just the beginning of the crisis.
There’s been a temptation in the past to perhaps take this country’s — and this region’s — healthcare services and providers for granted. They have always been there for us when we’ve needed them. If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything — and it will teach us a lot before this is over — it’s that we should never take these men and women for granted.
For many reasons, we should be clapping, hanging signs of thanks and encouragement, and bringing hot meals to these people every day, not just during a pandemic.
As we continue to draw both parallels to and inspiration from World War II, it’s time to put a fresh spin on perhaps the most famous speech of the war.
Our healthcare workers are now the ‘few,’ and all of us owe them all a great deal.
George O’Brien is the editor of HCN
An Unsettling Travesty at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home
Everywhere you look, the news on the COVID-19 pandemic is sobering and, in many cases, frightening.
But what we’re reading and hearing about what has gone on at the Soldier’s Home in Holyoke goes beyond that. This news is heartbreaking and, at the same time, disheartening.
We don’t know all the details, but what we do know is that people have died (18 was the latest count at press time last week), many others have tested positive for the virus, and protocols were not followed. And it’s clear that the first two developments are a result of the third.
Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse told the media that people started dying at the facility very early in March, and no one was told about this — not him, not anyone in state government, and none of the family members of the veterans receiving care at the facility. This at a time when it was clear — or should have been clear to all — that the virus was spreading like wildfire through the facility.
According to various media reports, Morse, frustrated in his efforts to get information and receive assurance that a very dangerous situation was being addressed, resorted to calling Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito. Soon thereafter, a team of health specialists was dispatched to the 68-year-old facility.
Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse told the media that people started dying at the facility very early in March, and no one was told about this — not him, not anyone in state government, and none of the family members of the veterans receiving care at the facility. This at a time when it was clear — or should have been clear to all — that the virus was spreading like wildfire through the facility.
As details continue to emerge, the story becomes more distressing and alarming. It appears that, from the start, the virus was not taken seriously, not by Bennett Walsh, the facility’s superintendent, who has since been suspended, and apparently not by Secretary of Veterans’ Services Francisco Urena.
Indeed, there are troubling reports that a Soldiers’ Home staffer who wore protective gear after treating the first veteran who displayed symptoms of the virus was reprimanded for doing so and sent a letter saying his behavior “unnecessarily disrupted and alarmed staff.”
There are other reports that veterans from infected areas were mixed with veterans from other floors, prompting comments that the spread of the virus through the facility could have been halted or slowed.
In comments to the press about the matter, Gov. Charlie Baker called what’s happening at the Soldiers’ Home a “gut-wrenching loss that is nothing short of devastating to all of us.” He went on to say that the first priority is to stabilize the situation and support the health and safety of residents and families, and the second priority is to get to the bottom of what happened.
He’s right, but he can’t forget about the second part of this equation. It seems clear that this situation was mishandled from the beginning and there was a disturbing lack of transparency with regard to how the matter was addressed. People are angry, and they have every right to be.
What’s most disturbing about this travesty is the setting in which it took place. The Soldiers’ Home cares for those who served their country in times of war and then looked to that same country to take care of them when they needed help. To say that the leaders of the Soldiers’ Home failed them — and their families — is a huge understatement.
As one family member of a resident told the media, “there are a lot of heroes in that building.” He’s right, and those heroes certainly deserve better.
