Boris Johnson has been confronted by an angry father at a hospital who told him his baby daughter had nearly died because the ward on which she was treated was “not safe for children” after years of austerity.
Omar Salem came face to face with the prime minister on the Acorn children’s ward of Whipps Cross university hospital in north-east London as embarrassed NHS bosses looked on.
In a two-minute tirade, Salem said the care given to his seven-day-old daughter was “not acceptable”. He told the prime minister: “There are not enough people on this ward, there are not enough doctors, there’s not enough nurses, it’s not well organised enough.”
He also accused the Conservative government of wrecking the NHS while using its hospitals as a backdrop for political campaigning.
Salem started the encounter in a hospital corridor, saying: “My daughter nearly died yesterday. And I came here, the A&E guys were great but we then came down to this ward here and it took two hours [inaudible] and that is just not acceptable. This ward is not safe for children.
“There was one registrar covering the entirety of this ward and the neonatal unit. That is just not acceptable, is it? There are not enough people on this ward, not enough doctors, not enough nurses and it’s not well organised enough.
Salem added: “The NHS has been destroyed … and now you come here for a press opportunity.”
Johnson said, incorrectly, “there’s no press here” in remarks recorded by TV news cameras covering the event. Salem then gestured to the cameras, saying: “What do you mean there’s no press here – who are these people?”
The prime minister said he was at the hospital to “find out” about the state of the NHS. Salem replied: “It’s a bit late, isn’t it? Years and years and years of the NHS being destroyed.”
Salem, who is a Labour activist campaigning against Brexit, later tweeted: “Boris Johnson had the temerity to come to Whipps Cross hospital for a press opportunity on the children’s ward that my seven-day-old daughter is on, having been admitted to A&E yesterday gravely ill. The A&E team were great but she then went for hours on the ward without seeing a doctor.”
He added: “I gave him a piece of my mind about how he is running the NHS based on the experience with my daughter, so that patients get the care they deserve, there is adequate staffing with good working conditions and worried fathers like me can have some peace of mind.”
Salem also said his role as a Labour activist should not be used to discount his complaints about his daughter’s treatment.
Omar Salem
(@OmarSalem)Quelle surprise. People will be shocked. You couldn’t tell from my @Twitter profile. My Labour values are WHY I back proper support for the NHS. I am not ashamed of them. https://t.co/DZMqOprMML
The Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, who was in the hospital at the time of the incident, echoed Salem’s concerns. She said the local NHS was in “tatters”, thanks to Johnson’s government.
Alan Gurney, the chief executive of Whipps Cross hospital, who stood beside Johnson as he was being confronted, blamed the temporary lack of care for Salem’s daughter on an unexpected emergency.
He said: “We are constantly reviewing staffing levels on our wards to ensure our patients are safe at all times, but occasionally – as in fact happened on this ward last night – an unexpected emergency in one part of the hospital can cause a temporary pressure elsewhere.”
A spokesman for the prime minister said Johnson was visiting public services to see for himself the reality of the situation.
The spokesman said Salem was understandably “very distressed” and the prime minister was “not going to hide away from those circumstances when he goes on these visits, and so obviously is keen to talk to people and empathise and see what he can do to help”.
“It’s also a reminder of why exactly he is so keen to make the NHS a priority and make sure it’s getting the funding that it requires,” the spokesman added.
Jonathan Ashworth, the Labour health spokesman, said the encounter showed Johnson “simply can’t be honest with people”.
“He can make as many phoney announcements on the NHS as he likes but he can’t hide from the truth, or from patients,” he said. “The Tories have plunged the health service into crisis through years of cuts and privatisation and the prime minister can’t run from the consequences this has had for patient care.
“You can’t trust the Tories because, as Johnson’s top adviser admits,
they don’t care about our NHS.”
Downing Street said the prime minister had spent the past six weeks visiting hospitals “to hear directly from NHS staff and patients – and this is exactly why he is so committed to making sure investment reaches frontline services, so that doctors and nurses have the resources they need and patients receive consistently world-leading care”.
A spokesman added: “This is why we’ve recently invested an additional £1.8bn into frontline services and are upgrading 20 hospitals across the country.”
The incident is latest in a series of awkward encounters for Johnson as he tours the UK in anticipation of a likely election. Last Friday, the prime minister’s speech about regional devolution was interrupted by a charity worker who loudly heckled him about proroguing parliament. On the same day he was confronted by a woman in Doncaster market who accused him of telling fairy tales about public funding and Brexit.
Earlier this month, on a walkabout in Morley, West Yorkshire, one voter politely asked Johnson to “please leave my town”, while another angrily accused him of “playing games”.
And on Monday, Johnson decided not to take part in a open-air press conference with the Luxembourg prime minister, Xavier Bettel, because of a rowdy anti Brexit protest nearby.
