The worship of the NHS

Any attempt to reform the NHS is met with institutional resistance and national outrage. One cannot even ask legitimate questions about its future without ordinary folk being shook to their core.

The National Health Service has long been regarded as some sort of sacred cow or golden calf, and many privately agree that it is ready for slaughter. Perhaps such a view of our national healthcare provider seems disproportionate or hyperbolic, but since the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, the ritual worship of the NHS on Thursday evenings at eight o’clock suggests otherwise.

We should not pretend that the regular and routine worship of the NHS has never existed before. The hysteria that came as a result of the suggestions that the NHS would be privatized during the 2019 General Election was reminiscent of the emotional response of those martyred for their faith.

Any attempt to reform the NHS is met with institutional resistance and national outrage. One cannot even ask legitimate questions about its future without ordinary folk being shook to their core.

The pandemic has demonstrated for many people how difficult the jobs of doctors and nurses are, and it will have also have illustrated the considerable strain the health service is under. But this does not justify the British people being coerced into bowing down in praise and adoration to the NHS who can do no wrong on a weekly basis. We do not owe the state or the NHS our unquestioning faith and allegiance and must resist attempts to bend over backwards and provide it.

The Labour Party have long framed the NHS as an integral constituent part of a patriotic national religion- hence the propagandist publicity stunt during the General Election. But the extent of this has been exasperated during the lockdown. We have been ordered to worship the NHS by clapping our hands and indicate we are fervent believers by having hand-painted flags in our windows. The similarities to the Book of Exodus and putting blood on your door posts is uncanny.

One of the more sinister aspects of life under lockdown is what happens to the heretics who break away from the liberal consensus and groupthink and do not subscribe to their doctrine. There have been instances where angry neighbours have taken to social media to incriminate and vent about those who did not clap to the NHS. We all know the types who are likely to notice if one week you were missing from your doorstep, or if this is your first appearance showing your state mandated approval of the NHS.

We cannot consider this obscure phenomenon without remembering the British people love a good old bandwagon to jump on. The capacity to virtue signal is immense for some people. I have never clapped for the NHS – or given the NHS the clap, as friends have mischievously suggested – not because I do not value its worth or do not appreciate those who work incredibly hard to keep it afloat, but because I do not feel comfortable in routinely participating in what had become a large social event for an impertect system. I refuse to be pressured to act in a prescribed way and blindly conform to a secular state religion.