BRITAIN’S BIGGEST chain of private hospitals, BMI Healthcare, is said
to be ‘discussing’ with the Department of Health about taking over the
management of NHS hospitals that are currently struggling with mounting
deficits.
Roger Shrives
So the only ‘solution’ New Labour health minister Patricia
Hewitt has
to the health service’s growing financial crisis is to ‘unleash
competitive forces’ on hospitals.
Dr Jackie Grunsell addresses demonstration
in Huddersfield
But health workers and others involved
in the many local campaigns to save the National Health Service would
say that Hewitt’s ‘solution’ has been the cause of their present
problems!
The financial ‘deficits’ common in hospital Trusts were mainly
brought about by New Labour’s policies. Despite their increased health
spending, Blair’s government has opened up the NHS to private-sector
profiteering. Their policies eat away at the fabric of the NHS, putting
more and more services out to private companies and exposing our health
to the hazards of the market.
Blair and Co. have also brought back the Tories’ old ‘internal
market’ mechanism that means hospitals are paid according to how many
patients they treat, basing their calculations on crude average hospital
costs. Hospitals that aren’t ‘average’ start building up deficits.
The profit-hungry private sector is on the look-out for every way
that they can make money out of our health and illness. No wonder that
in towns and cities across Britain, the NHS’ financial crisis is
bringing resistance at local level.
There have been protest marches in many areas, not only in towns such
as Cambridge and Huddersfield but also in more rural areas such as
Shropshire, Wiltshire, Westmorland and Lincolnshire. They are all
campaigning to stop the closure and privatisation of NHS facilities
which are threatened by New Labour.
What is clearly needed here is for these campaigns to be co-ordinated
nationwide. Just think what impact a national demonstration against cuts
and privatisation of the NHS would have on people throughout Britain.
The campaign also needs to build support for national strike action by
NHS workers to defend jobs and services.
1500 March in Huddersfield
FOR THE second time in four weeks, the people of Huddersfield
gathered on 14 January to oppose the Calderdale and Huddersfield Health
Trust’s plans to transfer hospital services out of the town.
