With everything that's happening right now I've been thinking a lot about my Gran and the three weeks she was in hospital in April 2016, before she passed away in June the same year.

I've been thinking about so many immigrants, many elderly, who are in a similar position now.

My Gran was terrified of being alone in the hospital, she didn't speak English, only understood a little bit. So we made a deal with the hospital that one person could stay overnight with her.

I slept on a mattress on the floor of her room a lot over those 3 weeks.

I say slept, I really just took naps in between helping her when she woke up several times in the night. I got to know the hospital really well. The staff were amazing and handled her worries brilliantly.

Then when she had a stroke in June that led to her dying a week later...

the doctor (also Muslim) spoke to my dad and my uncle like they could be his brothers. I was in on the conversations, they relied on me making decisions and I honestly could not have done it without all the NHS staff that were taking time to explain things.

They allowed us to take her home for palliative care, the wonderful people at Marie Curie provided nurses during the day that came in to see her over the 5 days she was with us, and even provided a night nurse so I could sleep (I didn't sleep).

This is was all the NHS.

It was an incredible privilege to be with my Gran, but more importantly it gave her comfort knowing she was home and with family. Despite being paralysed on one side she tried to get out of bed when I told her we were taking her home. It was the most animated she'd been in days.

So the thing that breaks my heart the most, that distresses me, is the thought of all these people - that make me think of my gran- are alone and afraid and may not even understand the language that's being spoken around them. Sometimes only family can pick up on that distress.

I've read so many stories of how NHS staff are taking the place of family members when people are close to passing, this is really the next best thing, that they have someone. But what a mental burden to place upon them, for them to experience death over and over again.

When my gran passed it took me months to realise that I had gone through a version of dying with her. It's the hardest thing I've ever been through and I know NHS staff are trained to deal with these things, but they're human and death after death is trauma.

I really struggle to see people in bad situations. My instinct is always that I need to help the vulnerable. If I could then I'd wrap the world up in cotton wool, give everyone every comfort they could ever need and ensure we all live happy content lives.

I don't really know the purpose of this thread, other than trying to make sense of a lot of what I'm feeling and maybe other people are feeling the same way?

Immigrants are vilified. The NHS is underfunded. The government has screwed us all over, again and again and again.

Maybe my point is both human and political. People are good, they can be good. The government we have, and have had for a few years, is fuelled by hate and its currency is fear.

We need to take all the good and amplify it. The NHS is everything.

If anything should come out of all this it's this - we need to learn to communicate with each other and look past political spin and media bias. Learn about other cultures, we're all human, we all want the same things - security, happiness, love, to live a life worth something.

Then we need to ensure that that communication strengthens us and pushes us to fight the right wing rhetoric that seems to have been emboldened by our current government and the policies they put in place.

If this doesn't bring us all together then I don't know what will.