The NHS is in crisis. Ambulances are queueing up waiting for free trolleys and beds in A&E departments. And the Red Cross is having to intervene in hospitals across the country. All this thanks to Tory policy. Labour must now go on the offensive and offer a socialist alternative.
Our hospitals are choked to bursting point with patients who are medically fit for discharge. Many cannot go home, however, due to the failures of the resource-starved social services, who cannot provide the necessary after-care or alterations to domestic living (in terms of access, etc.) essential to patients’ independence in the community. All thanks to Tory policy.
Ambulances are queuing, as many as five in a line, awaiting free trolleys in A&E departments. These are also queued awaiting treatment spaces in the department, due to a lack of beds further up the line for those who have already been admitted. Red and black alerts have now become commonplace, and we find ourselves running on red alert most of the time.
As a working nurse, I can tell you that it really doesn’t matter what level of alert has been posted when you simply cannot cope. I see staff close to tears much of the time, because – again, due to Tory policy – they find themselves unable to give the full range of care that is needed. All they can do is to desperately struggle to stop people dying.
The Tory response to this crisis in the NHS has been to shift responsibility off their own shoulders and threaten further cuts to the service.
Theresa May and David Cameron’s governments have been fully exposed as being at the root of the huge crisis faced by hospitals and services across the country. People are now dying as a direct result of Tory policy, and May’s only resort is to scapegoat GPs and threaten their surgeries with cuts if they do not open those surgeries for 12 hours, seven days a week – and with no projected increase in their budgets.
This is typical Tory strategy: starve a service of cash and resources; demonstrate that it does not work; and use that as an excuse to put it out to private tender – or close it down altogether.
There can be no doubt about this: wrecking the NHS is deliberate, and is part and parcel of the steady march toward full privatisation. The reality of this would mean misery for those who rely on the NHS – from protracted pain and continuing poor health, to the increased likelihood of premature death.
Many millions who cannot afford private care or who have reached the limits of their insurance policy will be left to fend for themselves. This is the situation in the USA, and is the preferred model for the Tories and right-wing reformists alike. The attitude of the ruling class and their disgusting representatives towards the sick and the suffering is to turn the other way and just let them die.
This is the Labour Party’s opportunity to hit the Tories where it really hurts; on the NHS, May and the Tories are critically vulnerable. All resources must be focused on this – the nation’s most burning question. Corbyn and the leaders of the labour movement must hit this government of the rich on this vital issue and keep hitting them until they collapse.
Labour must now go on the offensive:
- Defend the NHS!
- Kick out the Tories!
- Labour to power on a socialist programme!
