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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
John Crace

Digested week: Keir, immigrants have made this stranger’s life immeasurably better

Keir Starmer stands at lectern with the sign 'Securing Britain's future'
Maybe Keir Starmer has been blessed. Maybe he has never needed to use the NHS’s emergency services. Photograph: Ian Vogler/PA

Monday

On a day like this, I think back to my heart attack last year. The doctors, nurses and hospital porters who treated me in St George’s. My 24 hours in A&E, wired up to various monitors, while staff tried to find me a bed. The two days on an overflow ward. The surgeon and his cardio team who had finished their list early and were well within their rights to knock off for the day or take it easy for the rest of their shift, but instead chose to treat me several days sooner than expected. Just because they could. To make a stranger’s life immeasurably better. To save my life. The hospital may have been stretched to breaking point but its staff could not have done more for me. Staff that had come to work in the UK from dozens of countries.

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