I Had My Jab

I was surprised on Monday afternoon to get a phone call from my surgery saying that my request to have my COVID jab out in the surgery car park had been agree.  However, I was told that I'd have to go in to tell the receptionist that we'd arrived.  I asked why we couldn't do what we do in taking the dog to the vets, and simply ring on the mobile to say we were there?  Apparently there was no direct phone line into the surgery for that.  Further discussion revealed that having notified them of our arrival, there would be no waiting, and we would go straight to get the jab, so I saw no point not doing that.

In fact, when we got to the car park it was utter chaos.  The car park is way too small for the number of vehicles that invaded it filled with people coming to get their jabs.  Clearly, in the rush to get as many people jabbed as possible in the shortest time possible, the NHS is continuing to operate on its old Fordist principles of an assembly line, working non-stop with as much speed-up as possible with little regard for those passing along the assembly line or for the NHS workers operating it.

I'm sure that over the period there will be accidents on the car park, because everyone had to try to find spare inches to turn around having failed to find a parking space, even with the disabled spaces being continually filled.  The offer to give us the jabs in the car on the car park was really bogus, because there was no space between cars for any nurses to have squeezed between them to administer the vaccine.

And, it was, in any case, set up so that everyone had to queue in the car park waiting to announce their arrival to a bloke who appeared periodically to take names.   As it happened, there was an accident on the car park arising from these cramped conditions.  Standing in line, I suddenly felt the backs of my legs taken from under me, as a large BMW backed into me!  How they managed that I do not know as it would have had rear parking sensors.  Another couple of inches, and I would have needed a visit to A & E, even before getting in for the jab, which with the current proclivity of the NHS to infect a large proportion of the population that pass through its doors would have probably been the end of me.

At this point, my wife decided to join me in the queue.  Two people at a time went in, and it didn't take too long to go in.  However, inside, there were a significant number of people in a small and enclosed space.  It would have been possible to keep doors and windows open to ensure a regular change and flow of air, but that had not been done.  Let me be clear, I'm not criticising the health workers involved here who have been acting valiantly, and at considerable risk to themselves, as they are the ones most subject, all day long, day after day, to these improvised and inadequate conditions and precautions.  The responsibility lies with the NHS itself as a state capitalist, hierarchical and bureaucratic organisation.

Anyway, we got it done, and I feel fine.  But, we still can't change our behaviour, because we don't know how reliable the A-Z vaccine is for the over 65's, an in any case, my son still has not had his jab yet.  Indeed, despite being over 65 and a lifelong asthmatic, I'm still not included in the government's totally inadequate list of people who should be shielding.  Perhaps as well I have not relied on the capitalist state to protect my health, and instead relied on common sense to be shielding for the last year anyway!