SCANNING OUR NHS
It’s laudable. It’s noble; it’s the kind of thing good people come up with and it represents the finest aspects of human endeavour – the way we should think about one another, the way we should care. This is the UK’s National Health Service, but in particular the campaign which is being run locally here in Mansfield to provide our flagship hospital, Kings Mill, with a much-needed £750,000 MRI scanner.
Yet although I’ve already made my small donation, this poses other, serious questions about our beloved NHS. In the USA, the rabid right wing Republicans have already been on their corporate, fascistic bandwagon following Danny Boyle’s brave segment flagging up the NHS in his epic Olympics opening ceremony. Whereas we all saw it as a celebration of one of the greatest social advances our country has ever made, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, (the usual rapacious capitalist White House wannabe) has been burbling on in his scaremongering TV ads about the ‘socialist threat’ our health service might pose for America’s sick and needy.
But relax, Mitt! Profit is already being made by your international greed merchants. Kings Mill hospital is dogged by the ‘Profit from Illness’ (PFI) scheme; it cost £320 million to build but is owned by a firm called Skanska which wants well over a billion for it – that’s a payback to the debt collectors of £1 million per month which will not be settled until 2042!! PFI is ripping the heart out of our NHS, whilst as tax-paying UK citizens, we delve into our almost empty pockets yet again for a piece of equipment which costs far less than one ground to air missile. For one USAF Stealth Bomber (£1.5 billion) Americans could have scanners all over the place. But that's preserving life - where's the profit in that? And there are other questions about the running of our flagship hospital. For example – why is it, when a patient is called to an appointment with a consultant, are five more patients pencilled in for the same time with the same consultant? This happened last week when taking my daughter, suffering in her second year of cancer, for an 11.45 appointment. We were made to wait for three hours. The Registrar apologised and told us that he and his colleagues have tried to get this ridiculous system altered, but without success. So be warned – even if you arrive an hour before your appointment – cancel the rest of your day – you’re one of six people for the same slot in the Kings Mill diary. Little wonder the waiting rooms are full.
Yes, King’s Mill needs that scanner badly – it will save patients travelling to Newark and Nottingham, but raising £750,000 should not be a burden placed solely on the public. The rapacious corporate invasion of the NHS is increasingly evident at King’s Mill. Take for example the global parking company, Parkeon, (major shareholders, Barclays Private Equity), which charges NHS patients thousands of pounds as they waste hours waiting. Parkeon operates in 50 countries worldwide and in 2010 alone took £143 million in parking charges. Will Parkeon be making a scanner donation? Or what about the occupants of the King’s Mill Shopping Mall – W.H. Smith, whose investors include the giant US money institution BlackRock Inc., and Tony Blair’s favourite employer, bankers J. P. Morgan? Can they spare a few quid for the scanner? We could ask the same of Costa Coffee, owned by brewing giants Whitbread plc – they turned over £340 million last year. They surely wouldn’t miss a few grand from their Costa Foundation fund. As for the King’s Mill Beauty Parlour (it’s so de rigeur to have nice nails and a hairdo when you’re about to have surgery), at least they’re donating a few pence per haircut. Of course, King’s Mill used to have its own successful charity shop which was already helping, but that’s gone - such ‘down market’ institutions don’t fit the glossy privatised image Health Minister Lansley is aiming for. Still, never mind. If we all win the lottery, there’s always BUPA.
