Ode to Sanity

My oh my, being stuck indoors nearly 24/7 really does have an progressively less subtle way of telling you how long an indoor hobby can keep you occupied. For instance, I can now name most major settlements in Chile from looking at my world map for about half an hour a day, and must now be regarded as a home design god having rearranged my room to make it both brighter and larger: delightful!

With all of that being done, so creeps in the increasingly inescapable reality that I, along with the rest of the law abiding nation, am totally and helplessly trapped inside with very little other than my own thoughts to keep me occupied. For anyone that knows me, they may well know that my mind isn’t always the most joyous or fun place, and without the wonders of the outside world and, dare I say even other people, it truly is a testing time.

This certainly isn’t a reality limited to me, nor limited to times of pandemic. With many across the nation already suffering from mental health issues and many more being newly and pressingly affected by this drastic change in circumstances, it truly does put the mental health infrastructure of the NHS under the spotlight. Naturally, having been exposed to 9 years of incumbent Tory rule, this isn’t a new issue. Nor is the underfunding of the NHS as a whole. Nor is the underfunding of our public services: be it the surge in demand for universal credit or the fact that in one of the largest economies in the world, food banks simply aren’t able to keep up with demand.

The mental health epidemic, as exacerbated by the viral pandemic, is simply another symptom of the gaping holes with which years of austerity have left us. These services are going to be put through increasingly testing times as we move forward, but we have let complacency appear to get the better of us. Certainly, the ballot box the last few years has reflected this, with tory cut after tory cut slicing into the heart of our communities and health care, seeming to be backed again and again by an increasingly ageing electorate.

If the cuts were leaving us struggling outside of times of global pandemic, why should we now be surprised that hospitals are needing to be built in a week, that pop up tents to store our dead are having to appear, and that the mental health of the nation is having to be put even further back on the shelf?

This isn’t a society that we should be content with at any time, let alone a time as serious as this. So, the next time this lockdown is getting you down, the next time you read the daily death statistics, recognise that it is incumbent on all of us to change this – there is no reason we should be content with the bare minimum, not in the worlds sixth largest economy: not in the 21st century.

If we come together, then maybe we can start solving the mental health epidemic, get people off the streets and leading better lives: everyone deserves a fair crack at life and a legislative infrastructure that will support them, not bully them.

Yes, I really do know these regions... God I've been bored.