Judith Byrne, West Midlands Socialist Party
I worked for the NHS for 40 years, and since retirement have campaigned relentlessly to save it from Conservative governments. I have watched their deliberate destruction of the NHS over many years, as a clinician and while accompanying relatives to appointments.
But in November 2022, I became seriously unwell myself and was admitted to a hospital built under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI).
I was relieved and surprised when paramedics arrived within minutes to stabilise my condition and transfer me to hospital. Once we arrived we had to wait in the ambulance for four hours; thankfully the paramedics were able to administer pain relief. I actually found myself feeling guilty about occupying an emergency ambulance, despite being in a pretty bad state.
Corridors
Once inside A&E I was with about 15 others in a corridor for seven hours. Staff moved us around on trolleys regularly to access in-use cupboards, apologising every time – it wasn’t their fault!
The experience was utterly awful, and absolutely not the fault of clinicians. Everyone appeared stressed, rushed and miserable. Back when I was working, a hospital in the condition I observed would have been given a poor hygiene rating. Cleanliness was a selling point of PFI when it was introduced!
On one day of my stay there were 92 waiting for beds – three wards worth of patients! During my stay I was informed that a new extension is reaching completion, being built onto the existing A&E. But who will work in it? There is an extreme lack of nurses and doctors. Just increasing the bed capacity is not the solution, there has to be staff to work there too.
I have witnessed the slow, deliberate running down of our NHS by Conservative governments since the 1980s. And in Labour’s time, the expansion of PFI loading the service with mountains of debt. The speed of this current destruction is terrifying and horrific.
Support the NHS strikes, save our NHS from Tory wreckers.
