ON March 15 at the historic Special Representative Meeting (SRM) of the BMA, which its Council was forced to call to decide on the BMA’s attitude to the Health and Social Care Bill, after rejecting the demand for a SRM on a number of occasions, its chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum, putting on a show of passion, made the following declaration concerning the Bill.
He said: ‘Let no one be in any doubt that I do not support this Bill, the BMA does not support this Bill. the profession – as shown by our recent Mori poll and in meetings up and down the country – does not support this Bill.’
With this motion passed, and despite further attempts by the BMA council to carry on collaborating with the Tories, Humpty-Dumpty fell off the wall, and all of the ruling class’s army of media yes-men and yes-women were unable to put it back together again.
The floodgates opened and through it passed the RCN, and now the giant Unison trade union which on Tuesday called for the scrapping of the Bill.
Unite has also joined this vital battle deriding the new Tory stance that they want more representations and were ‘listening’, declaring ‘Is the same government that shunned 100 amendments to the health bill really ready to listen?’
It concluded: ‘Quite simply, this bill cannot be saved. In the weeks to come, all sorts of fudges will be proposed, but if the government is truly listening it will understand that the only way forward is to ditch this bill and start again.’
The government is simply engaged in trying to woo back the BMA and other union leaders with its listening tactic. They understand that if the BMA will not support the plan to privatise and smash the NHS, then the plan is dead in the water.
Yesterday the BMA’s ‘hero’ of the SRM, Meldrum, who got cold feet the very next day, was showing even more of his collaborationist willingness to mount an attempt to rescue the Tories.
When News Line contacted the BMA about the ‘listening’ farce, after months of consultations, the official we spoke to professed no knowledge of the content of Motion 35, and of Meldrum’s ‘heroics’.
Indeed a statement was put out by Chairman Meldrum saying: ‘If the Secretary of State is genuinely committed to listening, he must be prepared to make real changes – not just tinker at the edges. The BMA, other health unions, royal colleges, patients’ groups, and countless experts have already made their views very clear. The government cannot have failed to have heard the voices expressing serious concerns about so many aspects of their plans, particularly the pace and scale of the changes, the role of Monitor in enforcing competition, and the plans for education and training.’
An hour later Meldrum went further, declaring: ‘We see it as positive that the government is committed to listening. . . The BMA will co-operate to get across the views of doctors, and to work to ensure we get the best outcome for patients.’
This is the same Meldrum who at the SRM said that the Bill must be withdrawn!
He is now ready to openly betray the BMA SRM decision and make an attempt to give the bill to smash the NHS the kiss of life.
This is the moment for the entire BMA, all its branches, its regions and its council to tell Meldrum that he must resign.
The BMA must stand fast and join with the other unions in showing a steely determination to defend the NHS by refusing to collaborate in making the bill look better by agreeing some minor cosmetic changes. The Bill and the coalition must be consigned to the dustbin.
