A mosque in London has pledged to deliver hot meals to local hospital staff every Friday as a “token of thanks”.
East London Mosque, along with the London Muslim Centre, delivered more than 100 hot meals to staff at the Royal London Hospital on Friday for the first time.
The mosque, which is also providing a food bank delivery service for the local community, said the meals would help to pay tribute to the “hard work and bravery” of healthcare workers during the pandemic.
“In these difficult times, our NHS has been at the forefront of saving the lives of so many people,” Dilowar Khan, director of the East London Mosque Trust, said.
“We commend them for their hard work and bravery, setting aside their own families to help others, and it’s with this spirit of gratitude that we wanted to show a small token of thanks to our long standing neighbours, the Royal London Hospital.”
The mosque is temporarily closed, despite the Government allowing places of worship to remain open under coronavirus restrictions, due to high levels of Covid-19 in the local area.
Miss work
A common feeling that Britons cannot afford to miss work “sums up why we have failed to manage the pandemic”, a doctor has said.
Dr Nishant Joshi, 32, a GP trainee in Luton, went viral with a tweet about a complaint he receives on a daily basis – that many patients feel unable to take time off even if they have coronavirus symptoms.
“‘But doctor, I can’t afford to take time off work…’” he wrote on Twitter. “I hear it every single day. This is the single sentence that sums up why we have failed to manage the pandemic.”
This week, the UK passed 100,000 coronavirus deaths, with cases extremely high in large parts of the country.
Some have called for a temporary pause to jobs where staff are unable to work from home, in a bid to prevent further increases in cases.
Dr Joshi told the PA news agency it appeared some employers were also “bending the rules”, including one case where an isolating patient had been asked to return to work “sooner than they otherwise would have”.
“It just brought home to me that, at a time when we should be trying to put a bow on the pandemic, and wish it goodbye really, we’re still struggling with the basics.”
Dr Joshi told PA he felt society has “a chronic problem with presenteeism” in the workplace.
“All of us will have gone into work while not feeling anywhere near 100% at some time,” he said.
“It’s almost like a badge of honour to turn up to work 100% of the time, and then if you were to ever call in sick, then almost feel like there’s a sense of shame or letting your team down.”
Related: Covid: Rejection of jab by ethnic minorities ‘could fan flames of Islamophobia’