The German doctor Hubertus von Blumenthal has been working for 30 years in the UK. But the threat of a Brexit unsettled him more and more, and like many of his EU colleagues, he now thinks of moving.
For Dr. Blumenthal the world since the Brexit Referendum in order
The text message from his daughter, got Hubertus von Blumenthal early in the Morning after the Brexit Referendum: “I can’t believe it.” He had not understood at all, that would change his life, told the German doctor that has been working for almost thirty years in the British health system. The night had “changed the atmosphere in the country”. His patient had asked him suddenly: “you Need to get out now?” Others had assured him that they would need him more: “you go now, not to go home, doctor?” “I’m home,” Blumenthal replied to you there. He is living longer in the UK than in Germany. And the doctor is depressed, how to be a little long, the service seems to apply in the public health system, in the face of a Brexit.
The mainspring is xenophobia
Of Blumenthal’s practice in the village of Gamlingay is working in a community. Earlier, it was grown here, mainly grain, in the meantime, the site to the catchment area of the boom is part of the University city of Cambridge. Be doctor the room is tiny and dark, and it takes a lot of dedication, his professional life in this environment, to spend. After endless savings, the facilities in the national health system are usually out of date and poor.
In this corner of Surrey, the majority of residents have voted in favour of the Brexit, told the doctor, you are more likely to be connected to the older and tradition, and have no idea of the globalised economy. In the middle of Cambridge, it is exactly the opposite: students and researchers come from all over the world and belong to the global Elite. They bring prosperity and jobs to the Region, but thirty kilometers outside of the local inhabitants no longer see the connection.
Why voted the people in Gamlingay for the Brexit?
If the people in Gamlingay and the villages are suspended in this area, but neither poor nor socially, what does the Brexit vote driven? “It is mostly xenophobia,” says the doctor. It has thrown the Situation into a kind of personal crisis: “A certain press has done for years, all that is Foreign”, and many people have based their opinions. In addition, there is no knowledge about the EU. “I have always been interested in British society and politics. And the decision in favour of the Brexit effect of decomposing and destructive than anything I’ve experienced here.”
The health care system plunges into crisis
For the year-long cuts to the battered health care system of the Brexit threatens to be a Disaster. “Our patients always have to wait longer, and some treatments”, explained Hubertus von Blumenthal. In the NHS’s 10,000 Doctors were missing even now: “If I go, you’ll hardly find someone who can replace me”. Five percent of all British Doctors come from the EU, and almost half of them now consider to leave the country, writes the Chairman of the British medical Association Andrew Goddard. Even the then health Minister, Jeremy Hunt, had admitted in June that the uncertainty due to the Brexit “unfortunately, some of the esteemed colleagues from Europe,” from the country driving.
Cuff links with Europe-flag: Small personal Protest of the German doctor
For Blumenthal, the bill is clear: Hunt had promised 5000 new Doctors by 2020. It is unclear where they will come from. As the NHS have now tried to fill in the gaps, at least partially, and in the EU 3000 new Doctors to recruit, there were just 86 interested parties. “Why should come from a European doctor here, if his career, the conditions for him and his family, the recognition of his qualifications, everything in the air?”, the German doctor asks. “We are living in limbo and just don’t know how to do it. All the assurances count for nothing, because the next Minister can change with the stroke of a pen”. And this is true not only for Doctors but also for nurses and other medical staff in the UK healthcare sector.
Nurses were frantically in search of
The Royal Association of nurses is a tradition-rich institution and resides in a fine town house in London. The mood of the Chairman, Mary Trewern but combative. She has just challenged in an appeal to the government to consider the consequences of Brexit for the health system and its Employees. The worst fears would come true: “Since the Brexit Referendum will have left us in 2000, nurses from the EU. This is a significant number, and with them experience and knowledge go, what’s the harm in the health system, especially in key areas,” says Trewern. Especially in the case of European nurses training and Standards just are not comparable.
Mary Trewern by the Association of British nurse is urgently looking for thousands of nurses
“We need these workers, and we are upset because we see our colleagues so worried. You can’t plan your life, your apartment, schools for the children, nothing is safe. We don’t want you to go. We would like to keep you, because we appreciate your contribution to our community.” And it is especially the young that the NHS so desperately needs and by this emigration would lose.
Currently, the sisters are missing in the UK already, and 40,000 sick, and Mary Trewern feared serious consequences for the patient. You are trying to recruit now worldwide nurses, but the means to get them from third world countries, where you can also be used. These consequences of a Brexit would not have considered the politician, says Mary Trewern. “You missed, because it is about policy and not to the common good. I, as a nurse, but am in favour of the common good.”
Also on the visit to the village pub, Dr. Blumenthal would have to forego if he leaves the UK
The situation could become untenable
In Gaminglay Dr. Blumenthal makes at the end of a detour in the village pub, where he talks a little about Personal things. The course of the negotiations in Brussels and the developments in London make him a private, and said: “It could be that is the Situation, for us, untenable.” And he, too, had a contingency plan, although it will be difficult for him to go away. After thirty years, he is rooted here and the children and grandchildren also live in the area. “My wife is Irish, she works for a global company, we could both go to Ireland and start a new life.”
He has hope that the Brexit to 29. March next year is still avoidable? “A lot of people have a quasi-religious Faith in the Brexit, and want nothing else to know, not want experts to listen to.” If you should vote in a second Referendum, against the withdrawal from the EU, “you have to recognise that you have previously made the wrong decision. And that’s sometimes difficult.” In addition, the time was too short and the political pressure is missing.
Many Brits had no desire to deal further with the topic. Their Mantra is: “I’ve had enough. Let us now easy to make, even if it is a bitter pill to swallow. In the end it will go already.” A fatalism, Dr. Blumenthal shares. “Since the Referendum I have thought about her every day, somehow to the Brexit”. For people like him, but Boris Johnson and his supporters, the fight once again against the Prime Minister and for the hard break with the EU ready to have no answers.