Captain Sir Tom Moore was a genuine hero who did his bit to fight back the evils of Nazi Germany during the Second World War and latterly found fame raising money for the National Health Service. Sir Tom passed away a couple of days ago at the age of 100 because of pneumonia, a complaint that is so often the cause of death in the elderly that it once got the nickname ‘the old man’s friend’.

Captain Sir Tom Moore was one of those old style Britons who helped others because it was the correct and moral thing to do and reached a very ripe old age and is a man whose life should be recognised as a good one. However there was a tragic and melancholy irony about his last days. This is the likelihood that he contracted covid in one of the very same hospitals that he put so much effort into raising money for.

Prior to his hospitalisation for pneumonia Sir Tom had been given regular covid tests, all of which came back negative. But, after he entered hospital he tested positive for covid. As at least 20% of covid infections are not acquired in the community but instead in NHS hospitals, it is quite likely that he contracted covid whilst in an NHS hospital.

Here’s what the Daily Mail had to say about Sir Tom’s hospital acquired infection:

The 100-year-old was clear of coronavirus on December 9 before he flew away for what would be his final holiday to Barbados and again when he arrived home on January 6.

After returning to the UK he was admitted to Bedford Hospital on January 12 where he was diagnosed with pneumonia.

As is standard for patients, he was tested on entry for coronavirus and throughout his stay and results all came back showing he was negative for Covid-19. He was unable to get a vaccine jab because of the treatment.

But by the time he was discharged from the hospital on January 22 tests showed he had now caught the disease.

At his home in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, he was cared for by family and medics until he had to be taken back to hospital on January 31 by ambulance when he started having breathing difficulties.

The next Tuesday, February 2, his devastated daughters Hannah Ingram-Moore and Lucy Teixeira announced he had passed away peacefully.

Information on the sequence of events leading up to the hero’s death has been released by his family. The hospital have not commented today.

Pneumonia is a known killer of the elderly and it is more than likely that it is this condition that carried off Sir Tom rather than covid. However the fact that he contracted covid whilst in one of Britain’s filthy, incompetently managed, wasteful and inefficient NHS hospitals should not be ignored. It’s quite plain to see when looking at the timeline of tests that Sir Tom did not contract covid either in the UK from a community contact nor when he took his last holiday in Barbados. The timeline shows that the most likely route of transfer for this infection was from inside the hospital.

Whilst I quite rightly celebrate Sir Tom’s life and his achievements the fact that he contracted covid in one of the very NHS hospitals that he raised millions of pounds for leaves a sour taste in the mouth. The NHS did not, unlike with other patients at other hospitals, kill Sir Tom with incompetence and cruelty, but they did not, as a hospital should do, keep him safe from infection. Sir Tom was one of millions of people who enter hospital for one condition and contract infections whilst in hospital and these infection problems do not just relate to covid. There are a multitude of difficult to treat infections that are rampant in the NHS, infections such as MRSA, Clostridioides difficile, and others and they can kill those with immune systems that are weakened by the conditions that the patient may have entered hospital for in the first place.

Sir Tom joins the lengthening list of Britons who, because of the disgraceful way that healthcare is provided and managed in the UK, contracted a preventable hospital acquired infection. Clap for the NHS? Not bloody likely.