People affected by Covid-19 have slammed ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock for his actions during the coronavirus pandemic, after he was grilled during an inquiry on multi-million pound contracts
Victims who lost family and caught the effects of long Covid have slammed Matt Hancock as a “national disgrace” who should never be forgiven for making “dodgy” PPE contracts.
The disgraced former health secretary was yesterday grilled before the Covid-19 Inquiry about how multi-million pound contracts for supplying PPE and other equipment were dolled out. Mr Hancock defended the “VIP lane” which saw friends of Tory politicians fast tracked for lucrative deals, selling medical kits to the government during the pandemic. Former nurse Rachel Hext, 37, caught the virus at work and is now disabled due to debilitating long Covid.
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Her list of long Covid symptoms includes everything from brain fog and extreme fatigue to nerve damage, and deafness in one ear. Rachel said: “It was wholly inappropriate to award dodgy contracts when the nation was at absolute breaking point.
“The people undertook these contracts did so on false pretences, they were neither geared up to manufacture PPE to the right spec or to cope with the highly pressurised demand that was needed. The catastrophic failure to deliver good quality PPE in a timely fashion meant that thousands of frontline staff contracted Covid.
“Let’s be explicitly clear on this, these Covid heroes who stood up and worked through warzone like conditions, either died or were left disabled by it. Now they have been abandoned to their fate whilst Matt Hancock pats himself on the back for a job well done. He’s a national disgrace and there are thousands of us who will never forgive him for his negligence.
“Meanwhile, those of us disabled with long Covid had to watch in tears while we saw warehouses full of thousands of pounds of PPE incinerated and he got to go off and play the ‘big I am’ in the jungle. They should have fed him to the crocodiles.”
Matthew Fowler lost his father Ian to Covid in April 2020 and is co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice. He said: “Despite the hard facts spelt out in the number of people who lost their lives as a result of his decisions, Hancock insists giving procurement deals to unqualified companies was the right thing to do, and resulted in more PPE.
“We know this isn’t true. Life saving PPE didn’t reach the frontline, while the Government lined the pockets of their mates with public money. We have seen this happen before. The Grenfell Inquiry, the Post Office Horizon Inquiry and now the Covid 19 Inquiry have shown both how bad at, and addicted to procuring services from private companies the British Government is.
“All being well, this module of the Inquiry will come up with recommendations that will improve procurement systems. But the Government needs to learn from the mistakes of previous administrations now.
“We want to know how and where money recouped by the Covid Corruption Commissioner will be spent, and want guarantees that it will be used to keep families safer in the future, not to enrich private companies.”
It was reported in November 2020 that a former neighbour in Hancock’s constituency had been awarded work supplying the government with tens of millions of vials for NHS Covid-19 tests despite having had no previous experience of producing medical supplies.
Alex Bourne, who used to run a pub close to Hancock’s former constituency home in Suffolk, said he initially offered his services to the Health Secretary by sending him a personal WhatsApp message.
Mr Hancock told the inquiry: “Forgive me for being impassioned on this point, but I have been subject to enormous amounts of conspiracy theories about what went on here, when in fact what happened was so many people working as hard as they could to save lives, and they bought more PPE as a result.
“And therefore people are alive who would otherwise be dead.”