The NHS and I were born in the same year. Well, I was about 6 months old when it came into existence, but we still count as contemporaries. If the NHS were a child we would have been in the same school year.
The NHS was one of the first universal health care systems established anywhere in the world. A leaflet was sent to every household in June 1948 which explained that:
“It will provide you with all medical, dental and nursing care. Everyone — rich or poor, man, woman or child — can use it or any part of it. There are no charges, except for a few special items. There are no insurance qualifications. But it is not a “charity”. You are all paying for it, mainly as tax payers, and it will relieve your money worries in time of illness.
— Central Office of Information, for the Ministry of Health”
The NHS could benefit us all. So today I read this headline in the Guardian:
“Hospitals in England could shed 100,000 jobs in response to cost-cutting orders”
Here’s a short quotation from the article:
“Matthew Taylor, the NHS Confederation’s chief executive, said trusts were being asked to make such “staggering” savings that they might not be able to help banish the long delays patients faced for treatment.”
Which was my reaction when I read the headline. Apart from a few aches and pains, a bit of slowing down, and other such old age and decrepitude stuff, I think I may be faring better than the NHS. There’s a definite feeling of it being run down so that the whole system can be privatised.
Thank you Wes Streeting! Here’s a link to the whole article.
And here’s another headline:
“Ill and disabled people will be made ‘invisible’ by UK benefit cuts, say experts”.
People who receive personal independence payments (PIP) or incapacity benefits are flagged up for local councils as being in need of local support services. If the benefit payments, “markers of need”, disappear, those people’s names disappear from lists and the already hard-pressed social services are no longer aware that they exist. I suppose that individual workers in the support services might wonder why some names have disappeared from their assigned cases but they’re almost certainly too busy to do much about it.
So much for a Labour government! Here’s a link to the article about it!
And here’s a photo of MPs showing solidarity with the two MPs who were not allowed into Israel.
“Cabinet ministers and more than 70 parliamentarians staged a show of solidarity with two MPs who were detained and barred from entry to Israel in what was the first time British MPs had been banned from the country.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, and the chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, joined the photocall in Westminster Hall on Monday with the MPs, along with Hamish Falconer and housing minister Rushanara Ali. It was organised by the Rochdale MP Paul Waugh.
In a statement in the Commons, Falconer said both were given clearance for entrance by Israel before travelling and said the ban “appears to have been taken on the basis of comments made in this chamber”, calling the treatment “unacceptable and deeply concerning”.”
It’s a pity they haven’t all agreed to work on persuading the government not to sell any more arms to Israel!
That’s rather a lot of negative news for one day! On the positive side, I heard about a woman who was born without a uterus, a rare condition. Her sister, having had her own children, donated her womb to her sister for a transplant. And now the sister with the transplant has had a baby of her own. How amazing is that!? Forty seven years ago the first IVF baby was born (Louise Brown was born in the same hospital as my son, just a few weeks after him: that’s why I remember how long ago it was.) and now the first baby has been delivered from a transplanted womb. Aren’t medical advances wonderful?!
Now we need to ensure that services are available “for the many not the few”! Goodness! That sounds rather like a slogan I have heard somewhere before!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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