An NHS cleaner has posted an impassioned plea to the Prime Minister after he found out that his family would not be eligible to apply for the government’s leave-to-remain scheme.
Hassan Akkad posted a video saying that he works in a hospital just ten miles away from where Boris Johnson received treatment for coronavirus.
He said he joined the health service because he wanted to help the nation overcome this pandemic, but felt shocked and betrayed when he discovered the government has decided to exclude cleaners and porters from the bereavement scheme.
I hope you can help my get this message delivered to Mr, PM @BorisJohnson pic.twitter.com/xUDl1rBPmu
— Hassan Akkad حسان عقاد (@hassan_akkad) May 20, 2020
It was revealed yesterday that some of the NHS’s lowest-paid workers have been left out of a Home Office scheme granting families of health workers indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
The exclusion was branded an “outrageous scandal” by the GMB union.
They said: “Once again our lowest-paid key workers are left out in the cold.
“We ask them to take the maximum risk – but they get minimal reward.
“They have been drafted to the front of the fight on Covid-19 and if – as so many have – they lose their lives in doing so, their families are not looked after.
“It’s only right that they’re offered the same security and peace of mind as directly-employed NHS staff – after all they face the same dangers.”