Thread by @Nurseborisbash

I didn't die but my life has been taken from me.
#BREATHTAKING watched through tears of recognition, reliving and remembering screaming on twitter, telling you all what was really happening.
In the absence of proper media coverage, I became a necessary whistle blower
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Some of you know that this is not my first account and will remember me as Ziggy and you'll hopefully remember my screaming.
Some of you also know how and why I lost that account. It was in effect my pandemic diary. For that reason only I'm frustrated at no longer having
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access.
Watching @doctor_oxford brilliantly written drama not only brought back my experience, it was my experience. My pinned tweet explains that.
When I started to "whistle blow", I don't even think I realised that I was.
I saw it as part of my code of conduct,
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my duty of care to let people know of the reality of what was happening in hospitals. To let you all know that the government was fcking it up at every step and that we were hindered, not helped by their chaos.
I suffered the vile abuse including death threats on here
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because the truth had to be heard.
The narrative coming from idiots on here spilled into my department. Relatives were pulling oxygen masks off their loved ones because "covid wasn't real".
People demanding to see covid patients.
I even nursed a dying covid
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patient who, while he could talk was telling me about Bill Gates' involvement. He had refused the vaccine.
My voice had become quite loud on here and as a result, I did several anonymous newspaper interviews and found myself becoming a regular caller on LBC after my very
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nervous debut on James O'Brien's show.
The day after my call to him I was at work and one of our porters came up to me saying I heard you on the radio. My manager was stood behind him as he congratulated me. My voice, it seems, is very recognisable.
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I'm stood there thinking "oh shit".
I gave my real first name, but wrong location.
My manager actually praised me for getting the truth out there. Not the traditional response I was expecting, but there was nothing traditional happening anymore.
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We were all exhausted, we had all seen and suffered enough.
It no longer felt like whistle blowing. It felt like being freed from a coercive relationship. Everyone I worked with had reached breaking point.
I was and have never been disciplined.
More and more of us
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were speaking out through social media and in the media.
A lot more brave than me have used their real identity which traditionally would have left them shunned and isolated.
That's the usual treatment for whistle blowing.
But that didn't happen. It didn't happen
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because we were all living the same nightmare. Because we were all saying the same things, questioning the same things.
We trusted each other.
We did not trust our government.
And let's be honest, they've treated us like shit since.
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Three of my friends died of covid.
Another friend committed suicide. She was working for an agency during the pandemic. She made a drug error and was suspended with no pay.
There was £70 in a fundraising account for her when she took her life.
A consultant I had worked
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with for years lost his daughter to suicide. She was a junior doctor working on a covid ward.
I started this thread by saying I didn't die. I have had my life taken by long covid. It stripped me of my health, my career and my ability to carry out basic tasks.
My life
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changed beyond all recognition in February 2022.
It had already changed when I lost my husband in a motorcycle accident 18 months before the pandemic.
Most of you know that I was taking a break from nursing to look after our 4 children, but returned to work as soon as
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the pandemic hit.
I haven't paid the ultimate price like so many, but I have paid a price. My children have paid a price.
The government?
They should pay.
All I did was to do my best to save lives, to treat my patients.
All Boris Johnson,
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Matt Hancock and Rishi Sunak did was about wealth. The desperation to build the economy in the middle of a fcking pandemic and the desire to make personal wealth.
Let's add Michael Gove to the shitlist. After all, he made millions for his mates with his
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VIProfiteering fast lane to blood money.
While we were wearing bin bags and had no access to the FFP3 that we needed to protect ourselves and our patients, the likes of Michelle Mone were accessing your tax money.
Reputable PPE providers were ignored by government in favour
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Of knicker factories, restaurant suppliers, pub landlords and any other greedy Tory donor who had Gove's email.
It's important to know that if all NHS staff were given FFP3 in all clinical settings, then the likelihood of hospital acquired covid would have been
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reduced massively.
The likelihood of dying or being left disabled by long covid would have reduced massively.
We've learned from the covid inquiry that the government called NHS and care staff "canaries in the coalmine", but the truth is, they knew some of us
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would die.
Even when we started dying, no action was taken. No mitigation. No investigations into any of those deaths. Just a round of applause on a Thursday night.
You were clapping heroes.
The government was clapping for cash for chums.
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My friends all died because they were doing their job, because if we didn't, who would?
I'm left disabled. There are thousands of healthcare staff like me, who have suffered for years because we were doing our job. Because we cared.
Because we couldn't walk away.
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I don't know if we'll ever get justice, and looking at other scandals, I doubt I'll still be here to see justice served, but as I've said before, as long as I have breath in my lungs, which has been in short supply for the last few weeks, I will continue to fight.
For my friends