Please write to your MSPs today and urge them to support call by the Scottish Healthcare Workers Coalition and others to keep staff and patients in health- and social care safe from Covid and other airborne diseases: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/we-need-masks-in-healthcare

In May this year, the Scottish government wrote to health boards and social care providers, advising that masks should no longer be routinely worn in hospitals, care homes, GP surgeries and other settings. They went as far as telling care home providers to no longer allow staff the choice to wear a mask, something no other government has done as far as Covid Action Scotland knows.

Even before then, patients and staff were being exposed to high risk of infection because the surgical masks advised and worn in Scotland and the rest of the UK provide little protection to those wearing them, far less than FFP2 or FFP3 masks, although they do reduce the spread of the virus to others. Now, staff and patients are being left with no protection at all, even though

• The death rate from Covid is far higher amongst patients who contract the virus in hospital than amongst people who get infected in the community. It is also higher than the risk of dying from hospital-acquired flu. However, good-quality masks prevent flu as well as Covid infections.
• As confirmed by the World Health Organisation, 10% of all Covid infections result in Long Covid, i.e. chronic illness, which can include organ damage. An individual’s risk increases with every reinfection. Health and social care workers are particularly exposed to (re)infections and thus to Long Covid, and many are facing the loss of their jobs and income while the healthcare staffing crisis is getting worse. 

In July 2023, the Scottish Health Workers Coalition published a detailed, well-referenced letter highlighting the serious harm caused by the lack of masks and other infection control measures (namely ventilation and air filtering) against Covid in health and social care. 

Please go to https://actionnetwork.org/letters/we-need-masks-in-healthcare to write to your MSPs today and urge them to support this call for safer health and social care! You may want to personalise your letter.

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