Congratulations Boris Johnson, Donald Trump is now pushing even harder for a lucrative trade deal with the UK, and we know what that means. He wants to get his hands on the NHS. That could force the NHS to pay more for life saving drugs, or sell off services to US private companies. The path to this trade deal just got a lot easier for him. A powerful government means that fewer MP''s can scrutinise or block trade deals that put our NHS at risk. Truly alarming times.
The United Kingdom's four separate and independent public healthcare providers (collectively the National Health Service) were established in 1948. Three core principles at the heart of the NHS are that it meets the needs of everyone, that it be free at the point of delivery, and that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay.
The NHS was the supreme achievement of the post-war welfare state ,subsequently becoming one of Britain's best loved institutions, and the one most likely to keep you alive. It is currently in crisis . Yet far from being accidental, this crisis has been deliberately designed by the Tories to accelerate NHS privatisation, forcing hospitals to compete against low-cost private companies to provide services. Since the Conservatives took power, the percentage of the NHS budget going to private healthcare providers has doubled.
A very important film has been recently released by renowned BAFTA and Emmy-winning filmmaker and journalist John Pilger, it is to be shown sadly in the post election graveyard on ITV and ITV Wales on Tuesday the 17th December at 10.45 pm. If you miss the screening on Tuesday you can catch it again for a month on ITV Player.
Do please inform other people, as it is vital as many people as possible, who value out NHS, please watch and share this film because this concerns every single one of us.
Pilger introducing the The Dirty War said that he had wanted to make it for some time, even though he had already made a couple of films about the NHS. He noted that the war on the NHS had been going on a long time but was at a crucial stage now. The NHS, said Pilger, has become a major issue in the election precisely because it “represents democracy.”
But what was at stake was more than “just” the dismantling by the corporate vultures of a system that was, in principle at least, a comprehensive (from the cradle to the grave) and universal service, free at the point of use. Pilger explains in the film that “Britain’s deadly disease was class. The NHS was not given from on high but won in struggle. It exemplifies what is good in British society. NHS is a deeply democratic institution. The leaflet announcing the NHS to the British people and given to everyone said, ‘Open to all, rich and poor.’”
“But” he said, “the corporations hate the NHS. They and the politicians are carrying out a war against it. We have to fight for it. We should have done so earlier because it touches all our lives. It is the great connector between all of us.
“If the NHS goes, everything else will go.”
Pilger makes clear that the dirty war on the NHS is aimed at giving free rein to the corporate sector, who cannot wait to get their hands on the service’s £120 billion a year funding, with author and Spinwatch campaigner Tamasin Cave describing the NHS as a “£120 billion opportunity” for the powerful healthcare corporations. It will mean a healthcare system that will deliver profits, not treatment and care for those who need it..In it, Pilger takes a hard swipe at the successive governments who are less-than-stealthily selling off the NHS to private firms to an unprecedented level in recent years. Some £15 billion, in NHS contracts has been given to private firms in the last five years alone ( The Guardian).
Here is the official preview of 'The Dirty War on the NHS. The film shows why the NHS was created after WW2 and how it has provided a vital safety net to generations of people that has slowly over the years since Margaret Thatcher, the NHS has been made ready to be sold off to an insurance based private healthcare system.It also shows how these same run for profit systems in the USA refuse treatment to many millions of people who are unable to afford sufficient health care insurance to cover their personal costs,Filmed in both countries , the film warns of the danger to the fundamental human right to medical care.
In July 2018 it was revealed that health secretary Matt Hancock accepted donations of £32,000 from the chairman of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think-tank that supports the privatisation of the NHS. In June 2019, US President Donald Trump insisted that the NHS should be "on the table" in any post-Brexit trade deal negotiations between the UK and the US.
In November 2019, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced the existence of a leaked 400+ page document detailing the UK government's secret talks with the US about including the National Health Service in a post-Brexit trade deal.
As of December 2019, the UK government insists that the NHS does not and will never face privatisation. However, spending increases have slowed dramatically under austerity, and cuts made elsewhere, especially to social care and welfare, have put the service under increasing pressure. Additionally there is the uncertainty of post-Brexit staffing: 5.6% of the total workforce are from EU countries, including 10% of doctors and 7% of nurses.
The N H.S is now clinging on a cliff edge because of underfunding, which threatens to push it over, combined with continuing attempts to make the N.H.S unworkable by making impossible demands on the system and its staff, with the Conservatives now in power again, the NHS is definitely 'unsafe ' in their hands, we have to continue to fight to save it from the grips of the privateers, because we owe it our lives.
Here is a link to an article in the Mirror by John Pilger
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-dirty-war-nhs-exposed-21036152
