Written by “Anonymous”
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[Ed: the writer of this letter is known to me. He desires to remain anonymous for the time being, for obvious reasons.]
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Dear Sir,
I’d like to tell you and your readers about the situation in Wales, from the HGV driver shortage to the NHS, as observed by me.
For example, I’ve been working at the old LG site near Newport, Wales, for over twelve months, throughout this so-called pandemic. It is now a gigantic storage warehouse for NHS Wales. You can literally turn your jumbo jets inside it. A few snippets you may be interested to know. I dislike Drakeford – but I must try to be fair: I have seen no shortage of NHS equipment of any sort.
We’ve had lorries to unload from as far apart as Turkey and Finland as well as many hundreds of British hauliers. We have also been paid to go down to Cardiff Airport and unload chartered Russian aircraft that have flown in goods from China such as rubber gloves. They now cost over a million pounds per articulated lorry full.
It’s been bloody hard graft and I’ve been getting home completely exhausted, often having worked seven days a week. Whereas the fold-up frames for the beds came from Turkey on the lorries, the mattresses and electronics were all British made. It was all high quality stuff. They bought a thousand beds. We worked our arses off getting them loaded onto our own trucks for delivery to the Millennium Stadium etc, to the famous Nightingale Hospitals. A few weeks later, it all came back. Unused. Then most of the beds and mattresses and a ventilator for each got given to India. That’s what was said. It was given to India. Millions of pounds worth.
These last few weeks I’ve been loading sea containers bound for Namibia, with seven million pounds worth of stuff such as hand sanitizer, body bags etc. The last two pallets on each container get a Welsh flag sticker, with “A present from the people of Wales” in English and Welsh written on it. Then the door gets sealed and off it goes to Felixstowe. I’m still scratching my head to know what I think of it being given to Namibia. But I already know what I think about it going to India!
Regarding the lorry driver shortage. I’ve not seen any shortage of Polish etc drivers bringing goods into our place in British registered trucks and I recently wrote to The South Wales Argus, in reply to one moaning idiot, to tell him so. But I have to say, I admire the way the Finns seem to do things. We get a weekly truck from Turku in Finland, of dry ice. Very clean, very proud looking vehicles. On the side or back of every one of them it says in big letters in English: Finnish Truck. Finnish Driver. Legal Licences.
I talk to loads of drivers. Many literally live in their cabs. The foreign ones. Or even the foreign ones who are driving for British companies. It’s mad. We get a weekly delivery of an articulated lorry full of Ethanol. It always comes on a Dutch registered trailer but is pulled by a Polish or Romanian cab that’s driven from Poland or Romania, to hitch up a trailer in Zeebrugge, to bring to Newport, Wales!
A while ago I was in the fire service. A national organisation that had too many chiefs and not enough Indians. It’s the same in the NHS. The wastage in the NHS is bloody criminal. When I worked for Boots, the amount of drugs wasted was mind boggling. Next Wednesday, I have a video interview to be a candidate for REFORM UK. If successful, I’ll be passing on what I’ve seen in my working life, Including the day I opened a cupboard in Duffryn Fire Station, expecting to find batteries and found a load of fire service badge condoms instead.
No doubt Starmer would say I’m trying to privatise the fire service. Actually I’m not, but Denmark is officially the happiest country on earth apparently and the fire service is very well operated there by FALCK and the Danes are proud of it and I’d much rather work for a happy FALCK than a pissed off West Midlands or Merseyside service.
He’d say I’m trying to privatise the NHS. I won’t be. But he hasn’t seen the piles of uncollected medicines at each Boots every month either. One month at Boots Cwmbran, the estimate was fifty five thousand pounds worth of uncollected medicines. One month. One shop. And it’s the same in all pharmacies, Boots or not, and that’s without what gets vastly over-prescribed and delivered to people’s homes, then has to be thrown away because it’s left the shop. At least the stuff that’s not collected can be re-used because it hasn’t left the shop. But Boots then gets paid twice for it. They think it’s mad as well. And this is just in Wales ….
Respectfully, “Anonymous”
Funny about the wasted meds at Boots. The chap in front of me at the chemist was trying to collect medecines for his wife, because she has been in Pakistan theses last two months . And the system showed she had collected in full from Boots ..presumably before leaving for home.
no waste there then.
I always held Dripford and the rest of the criminals in the Welsh Assembly in contempt but this takes the biscuit. I hope it goes viral, as they say. I would like to see heads roll but they will always cover their backsides somehow.
This is standard Nationalised industry stuff. You will find the same in every corner. Cheek by jowl to the saints and the honest, and reliable. The whole range will be there.You applaud the saints, you like those who do the job, And to the majority it is a job, and they do it.
The difficulty :–Starts at the top. No ruthless, bad tempered bastards like me. They don’t need to be. They are responsible to the civil servants Who have never sacked or been sacked.and in a surprisingly large number of cases.don’t think they need to.
It carries on down. I’ll take a day off sick tomorrow. No body complains ( It wouldnt help if they did. ). I’ll clear that up tomorrow and other excuses which are soon taken as normal, or not my jobs.I’ll just take home this Sheet and pillow case..I need half a pound of butter tnight….Have you got a couple of Biros. Here take a months supply of a box of 40..It takes an incredibly short space of time to become a problem.
…………..( Occasionally you get the saint. But they are reviled or at least known ) Funnily enough they are often storekeepers who know exactly the problems can be caused by slack…
Then there’s the serious crooks. Often colluding with Crooks on the inside. or between departments.
Once I opened the passenger door of a lorry leaving with a load of pots and pans, and getting about a thousnnds worth dropping out. I did it again a couple of days later all clean. But I thought i would check the trailer They were running a business. colluding with security. The lot went to the cops. It’s surprising how often this happens.
And with Nationalised industries and often big businesses, The Loot can be horrific.
And that is just the simple criminality. Nationalised Industries are a training ground. Not including those who are incompetent , unable idle or unknown ( Yes )
All this sounds to me like simple confirmation of something I read somewhere . . . . “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” Sounds about right, doncha think? Nothing to do with NHS, which is only a corporation. Everything to do with the people, the people, the people, who run things.
Thank you Anonymous. A very informative and thought provoking article.
Thank you Viv as well.
Excellent and timely article that should be distributed widely. I have eyes and ears in a private sector hospital and surprisingly the waste is just as casually prolific, the only difference being we taxpayers are not funding it, well directly anyway. But coming from the ‘make do and mend’, and ‘it’ll come in handy one day’, generation it appals me. Where are the save-the-planeteers, or simple common sense and responsibility, when it comes to genuine waste and profligacy?
Thank you, and good luck with the interview – perhaps you WILL then be free to get this message out.
And it has side-effect [sic] of me agreeing with Harry for once.
I worked in the NHS Wales. Sounds about right.
It will be a political decision to send surplus stuff abroad not the NHS.
It’s worse than you think. When the “gift” gets to the third world country, it will be hijacked by the local crooks/politicians and sold to the wealthy; the poor won’t get a look in.
The amount is actually a drop in the bucket compared to the population of these places. A lot of it will be wasted, especially the perishables.
It’s a case of local UK politicians virtue signalling/ covering their arses over their ineptitude. Though there was bound to be waste in the covid business. Hindsight is a jolly fine thing.