Picture by Soraia
Today is the 72nd Anniversary of the NHS and
we are very thankful for all that they have done and achieved, and we are
marking this with the greatest applause at 5pm.
On 5 July 1948, the NHS was launched by Aneurin Bevan,
Minister of Health, at Park Hospital in Manchester. For the first time
hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians and dentists were brought
together under one umbrella to provide free care.
Since then, the NHS has transformed the health and
wellbeing of the nation. It has delivered huge medical advances and
improvements to public health, meaning we can all expect to live longer,
healthier lives.
Sir Simon Stevens, Chief Executive, NHS England said ‘2020
has been the most challenging year in the history of the NHS and staff from
across the health service have pulled out the stops like never before to
deliver extraordinary care. From the domestic workers on the COVID-19 wards who
have worked tirelessly to keep hospitals clean, to medical students heading the
call for 111, call handlers and IT professionals working around the clock to
keep services running, the NHS has mobilised to tackle this once in a lifetime
global pandemic’.
Lockdown has been a tremendously challenging time for
everyone, but at the same time we have seen countless examples of people doing
their best and achieving amazing things – fundraising, volunteering, returning
to NHS careers, helping out neighbours, being more active, and a greater
willingness to talk about and address mental health issues. Many carers have
been truly heroic, and a substantial number have tragically lost their lives in
seeking to heal others: they will be especially remembered this evening.
There are 1.9 million people from amazingly diverse
backgrounds working across more than 350 different professions! The NHS’s
birthday closely follows national Windrush Day which celebrates the anniversary
of the Empire Windrush arriving at Tilbury Docks, London on 22 June 1948. Many
of the passengers took up roles in the NHS and were instrumental in building
our health service, which launched two weeks later.
Everyone matters, and what we think and do also matters
as we are reminded by this prayer attributed to St Theresa of Avila:
Christ has no body now on earth but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks with compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
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