OVER the weekend the British Red Cross made a call on the May government to allocate the necessary funds for health and social care, stating that there was now ‘a humanitarian crisis’ in the NHS.
Its chief executive Mike Adamson stated: ‘We have been called in to support the NHS and help get people home from hospital and free up much-needed beds. This means deploying our team of emergency volunteers and even calling on our partner Land Rover to lend vehicles to transport patients and get the system moving.
‘We call on the UK government to allocate immediate funding to stabilise the current system and set out plans towards creating a sustainable funding settlement for the future.’
The Red Cross’ description of a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in the NHS has ‘set the cat amongst the pigeons’ since it is a direct indictment of the Tory regime, and those trade union leaders who are tolerating it and its policies. The media has rushed in to say that there is no ‘humanitarian crisis in the NHS’, that this description was ‘a huge exaggeration’ adding for good measure: ‘The UK is not Syria.’
In fact the humanitarian crisis in Syria is the product of a US-UK decision to stop at nothing to remove President Assad, even if this resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and the total break-up of Syrian society. The humanitarian crisis in Syria is now being dealt with after the defeat of the UK-US intervention plot.
The same UK ruling class that decided to cause chaos in Syria, has also decided that UK capitalism cannot any longer afford to have an NHS, and is busy destroying it. The Tories are creating their own ‘humanitarian crisis’ at home.
The ongoing attempt to smash the NHS in the UK has created a huge shock and huge anger in the working class. However, the coup de grace for the NHS is now being prepared! This is the plan for 44 STPs to ‘save £29 billion’ and to cut the NHS to pieces, regardless of the humanitarian crisis for the working class, the middle class and the youth. This is why the intervention of the Red Cross branding the Tories as the authors of a humanitarian crisis in the NHS has caused such alarm!
Meanwhile, the agony continues, and becomes even more concentrated. Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said on Friday that it was investigating two deaths at Worcestershire Royal Hospital’s A&E department in the last week. John Freeman said his wife Pauline, who is recovering from a stroke, spent 38 hours on a trolley at the same hospital because of overcrowding.
‘My wife was stuck on a trolley right next to the fire doors in a corridor and she couldn’t get any sleep because of all the trolleys banging into the fire door going in and out,’ John told BBC News. There was probably in excess of 20 trolleys all stacked up. This is going back to the Dark Ages almost.’
The BMA responded to the news that the Red Cross has declared a humanitarian crisis in NHS hospitals. Dr Mark Porter, said: ‘This intervention from the Red Cross highlights the enormous pressure the NHS is currently facing as conditions in hospitals across the country are reaching a dangerous level. The government should be ashamed that it has got to the point where volunteers have been necessary to ease the burden.’
The GMB has warned: ‘This road to ruin is where our NHS is heading under Theresa May’s Tories. It’s an indictment of this government’s shambolic and negligent health policy that struggling NHS services and public servants are having to rely on charitable hand-outs just to function.’
The TUC however remains deaf and dumb on this massive issue! The reality is that the noose has been tightening around the neck of the NHS for years. In 1987 to 1988, there were 297,364 beds in England’s NHS hospitals; the figure now stands at 130,404. However, hospitals have treated many more people than they did back in the late 1980s – admissions have nearly doubled to more than 16 million.
Now the STPs will see to it that hospitals are cut, closed and the remnants privatised whatever the suffering this causes. There is only one answer and this is that the trade unions are forced by their members to take decisive action. All NHS cuts and closures must be stopped by trade union organised occupations. The mass movement of workers must force the TUC to call a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government and socialism. The ATUA, the industrial arm of the WRP, is calling a national conference on Saturday February 11th to mobilise for this action – see ad page 2. We urge all workers and youth to attend.
