We’ve sleepwalked into a Private NHS
Speaking on the foundation of the NHS on July 5 1948, Aneurin Bevan MP said “It will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.”
Recently, the soon-to-be privatised Royal Mail delivered a slick commercial leaflet to the population of Mansfield. It informs us that NHS patients can opt for treatment at a private BMI hospital, rather than ‘suffer’ elsewhere. Of course, you’ll have to pay for your meals, your phone calls and newspapers - but who will pay for the treatment? The rest of us. Thus BMI’s shareholders will profit from our National Insurance and tax contributions, whilst those who opt for this bogus ‘exclusivity’ can feel smugly superior to those of us languishing in Kings Mill Hospital. How much will a BMI surgeon or nurse charge the NHS? We don’t know - but it’ll be hefty. Who trained the private medical staff? The NHS. That’s us, folks, and without realising, we’ve been sleepwalking towards the Tory Holy Grail - private, for profit, health care.
David Cameron’s ‘promise’ “No top-down re-organisation of the NHS’ was, like Nick Clegg’s pledge on tuition fees, another fake. Behind Cameron’s empty words is a stark fact: 71 MPs and 145 Lords have vested interests in private healthcare. Even a self-deluded ‘socialist’ like Cherie Blair has interests in private clinics. Conservatives, Lib Dems and Labour all receive thousands of pounds in donations from companies who will benefit from the privatisation of the NHS.
Health Minister Andrew Lansley refused to publish the ‘risk dossier’ for his NHS plans. It was paid for by the tax payer, who was not allowed to see it, so with the aid of pressure groups such as 38 Degrees and the NHS Action Party, we got him replaced by Jeremy Hunt. But privatisation’s front line infantry don’t give up that easily. They have a cunning overall plan. It goes like this:
First, you get voted in by just 23.5% of the electorate and promise you’ll respect the NHS. Then you cut front line services and make false claims about NHS funding not being maintained. Cuts now hurting, you feed stories to the media about poor front line services, part of a barrage of anti-NHS propaganda. Then you can mention that ‘privatisation’ will make things better. If all this works, then BMI, BUPA and others will be over the moon and the NHS will become just another brand name.
Our millionaire Cabinet and their City friends detest the NHS. Why? It’s a proud, respected relic of a time when we really were‘all in it together’ - it represents community and social cohesion at its best. But most of all, they despise it because it doesn’t provide profit.
Back in 1948 Aneurin Bevan said of private beds: “unless properly controlled, we can have a two-tier system in which it will be thought that members of the general public will be having worse treatment than those who are able to pay.”
Get your credit cards ready. That system has arrived.