People with the same heart condition that Tony Blair was treated for
– an irregular heartbeat – have been knocked off the waiting list of the
Oxford Radcliffe NHS trust.
Ken Douglas
Told that their condition was not serious enough, they have been
condemned to a life limited by severe breathlessness and other disabling
symptoms. If these criteria had been applied to Blair then he wouldn’t
have been treated either.
This is yet another example of treatments being rationed because NHS
trusts are striving to reach government waiting list targets while
labouring under serious financial shortfalls. What makes it worse is
that the trust attempted to disguise it by claiming that it was a
clinical decision.
Health secretary Patricia Hewitt has launched a new initiative from 1
January, where patients can now ‘choose’ between at least four hospitals
for non-emergency treatment.
Choice
But what choice is there for the patients refused heart treatment?
What choice for the patient refused the breast cancer treatment
Herceptin and forced to take her local NHS trust to court?
Most people want to be able to choose to visit their local hospital
for the best treatment available but these changes could actually make
that less of a possibility as ‘unpopular’ hospitals face closure.
Labour claim to be putting record amounts of money into the health
service, in reality 25 years of chronic under-spending on the NHS means
that they are scratching the surface.
However, their forcing through of Tory policies championing the
private sector, such as the Private Finance Initiative, private
treatment centres, foundation hospitals etc means that health trusts are
paying huge amounts of cash to the private sector (see page 3) to pay
off the bloated costs of PFI deals, to buy in operations and to pay for
new drugs.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Like Tweedledum to Blair’s Tweedledee, David Cameron calls for
greater involvement of the private sector, the very thing that is
bringing the NHS to its knees.
The NHS is the most tangible expression of the gains made by working
class people in the twentieth century. Blair’s ideology of the free
market and his pro-big business policies are threatening this last
bastion of the welfare state.
Working-class people aren’t fooled by the spin. As in Huddersfield,
where there have been big protests against cuts, they know their health
service, their local hospital, is under threat like never before.
We need to fight back. The public sector trade unions should call a
national demonstration to save the NHS, drawing together all the local
campaigns. We need an alternative to the big business policies of the
three main parties, a new mass workers’ party that could fight to kick
the private sector out of our public services.
Above all, we need an alternative that puts ordinary people first,
that advocates using the vast wealth in society for the benefit of
everyone, not just a privileged few.
In other words, socialism.
