A thief has been imprisoned for stealing personal protection equipment (PPE) from a London ambulance, at a time when health workers are facing widespread shortages of the crucial matériel as a result of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
35-year-old Mark Manley, of no fixed abode, was described as having been “jailed for six months at Croydon Magistrates Court” for the crimes of “stealing equipment from a stationery ambulance” and assaulting a security guard in a Metropolitan Police statement.
However, criminals handed custodial sentences or less than six months are entitled to automatic release on licence halfway through their terms — as are most criminals given so-called determinate sentences longer than six months — so it is likely that, in practical terms, Manley was “jailed” for only three months.
Manley stole items including “masks, paper suits, and hand gel” from the ambulance on St Thomas Street in the British capital, which has become the country’s major coronavirus hotspot.
Some of the stolen items, according to the police statement, “were rendered no longer usable due to contamination”, depriving frontline health workers of crucial equipment.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries recently admitted that getting PPE to frontline health workers has proved “a little bit tricky”, thanks to distribution issues, but said the logistical situation is improving “with the Army’s support” — but there are claims conditions are still poor and medics are being threatened with the sack if they speak out publicly.
The shortages come despite the fact that even basic equipment such as masks are being rationed, with former World Health Organization (WHO) director Anthony Costello reporting that a contact at one major NHS hospital has told him that “Nurses, doctors, admin[istrators], cleaners are expressly discouraged from wearing masks around the hospital.”
Costello’s informant told him that the virologist leading South Korea’s testing programme, for example, was “incredulous” at the British PPE situation.
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