Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 71(2) May 2021
Reports
Kent and Sussex branches
Boarbank Hall.
‘What can we learn from Covid?’
We had an excellent evening reflection alongside a talk by Gerry Armitage, Professor Emeritus of Medical Error, Bradford, reflecting upon ‘What can we learn from Covid?’.
His thesis was that the real successes of the Covid response had been
where Trusts and individuals had been able to use their initiative to
design local and new responses to the crisis. Rapid build, rapid change
and rapid collaborations had enabled services to adapt to the extreme
pressures they were under. Gerry reminded us that subsidiarity is
something the Church has always recognised the importance of, and he
strongly felt it has worked well in his local community care setting.
We wondered whether or not such freedom, while clearly very powerful, would persist in a centrally managed NHS once this pandemic has settled down. An interesting question. our economy are in the face of such a tiny and invisible virus.
So it was right that we commended it all to Our Lord and Our Blessed Lady and finished with Night Prayer.