Will you help keep East London NHS public?

IT IS JUST OVER 70 years since the National Health Service (NHS) was established in the UK. It clung to one basic principle: everyone pays in according to their income; everyone receives healthcare according to their need.

In recent years that principle has been under attack. The Thatcher Government began to look at the NHS as a business which could deliver private profits to big business. Tony Blair’s Government used the NHS to channel public money into the private sector. Since them, it’s got worse.

Throughout the years, a small band of health campaigners has worked tirelessly to defend the NHS as a public service – with much larger groups of healthworkers and service users coming out on key campaigns.

The current campaign – Keep our NHS Public (KONP) – held its AGM on 15th June. Campaigners had a wide range of issues to discuss, on aspects of the NHS such as GP services and primary health care, but also on how the NHS is run – how migrants are treated, healthworkers’ rights and how the campaign should go forward.

An emergency motion showed that the issues of workers’ rights and the standard of NHS care are closely linked. NHS bosses have tried to save money by contracting out catering – leading to job losses, which the trade unions have oppose. But contracting out has often led to a poor standard of food being served to ill people – which is a great worry for patients and relatives.

Most recently, there has been a scandal around sandwiches being prepared miles away from the hospitals where they are consumed. That’s such an unsafe practice that at least five people have died from listeria as a result of eating private companies’ sandwiches. Ordinary members of the public have condemned the practice, and it’s a good opportunity for healthworkers and service users to work together on supporting a return to in-house – safe – catering.

There’s a number of important issues coming up. Depending on what happens with Brexit, the USA ma y be trying to muscle in on the NHS – helping the Tories turn the service into more of a business. And whose government will it be? Tory Party members are currently choosing our next Prime Minister, who will either be a right wing buffoon or a former Secretary of State for Health who alienated most of the workforce with new contracts of employment.

The NHS needs you to help save it – so that it can be there when you need the NHS.

•For more information about KONP, go to:
https://keepournhspublic.com/
(The website is experiencing very heavy useage and is prone to crashing. Please be patient [no pun intended] and return if you can’t get to the page you want immediately.)

•The next meeting of Tower Hamlets KONP is from 6-7.15pm on 3rd July in the cafe at the Whitechapel Ideas Store. Contact them via:
thkeepournhspublic@gmail.com

•Read more about it:
Call for Barts NHS Trust to end hostility to migrants
Campaigners explain opposition to GP at hand