I was immersed in a job for Boston University’s School of Public Health and couldn’t help but be reminded of our own health service here in the UK.
The UK general election campaign was in full swing and the National Health Service became a key battleground for the rival parties.
I was gobsmacked when watching a video circulating of Boris Johnson refusing to look at a picture (on the phone of an ITV reporter) of a four-year-old boy forced to sleep on the floor of a hospital. The boy was laying on his Mum’s coat awaiting treatment for suspected pneumonia in Leeds General Infirmary. When the reporter persisted in showing Johnson the picture, he (I can’t stress this enough…Boris Johnson, the PRIME MINISTER) pocketed his phone!
The reporter eventually asked for his phone back and Johnson apologised, saying, “We have every possible sympathy for everybody who has a bad experience in the NHS.”
The NHS England performance statistics revealed current waiting times in A&E departments at their highest levels on record, targets missed on patient waiting times for cancer care and non-urgent operations, and a staffing crisis with a shortage of 40,000 nurses. Debilitating cuts to social care and welfare have also put increasing pressure on the overstretched service. Not to mention the sinister privatisation through stealth.
One can only assume that this sustained underfunding and running-down of the NHS by the Tories over the last decade, is an idealogical demolition of this incredible institution.
Anyway, the crisis in the NHS didn’t cut through with the public (as this election was conflated with a re-run of the EU referendum) and they handed the Tories a resounding victory last Thursday.
I hope I’m wrong, but I do feel that these are worrying times for our health service.
Although, the Prime Minister did recently announce an extra £34 billion for the NHS, proclaiming, “it’s the biggest increase in modern memory in the NHS.” However, if you account for inflation there was a larger increase of spending from 2004 to 2010 under the previous Labour government!
I despair.