Monday 15 February 2016

The National Health Service

When I was born the National Health Service was just a month shy of its first birthday. I was duly registered and given an NHS number which has stayed with me all my life, until more recent changes in record keeping were brought about by a much more modern digital technology.

What a wonderful service it has been too. Obviously, one can only speak from one’s own experiences, and mine have been typical in most ways, and yet untypical in others. My father died when I was in my early teens, my mother when I was in my thirties. Whilst both were cared for by the National Health Service, sadly neither of them saw the benefits of a modern service such as we have today. The same must be said for at least two of my late brothers. I however, have been helped tremendously by a much more up to date service that has quite frankly saved my life twice, the first time unquestionably, the second time quite probably. My wife has been helped greatly too by our health service, as have my beloved children, where even now the benefit is being felt.

My family is just one of many in this country that has reaped major benefits from the wonderful carer that is the National Health Service, our glorious NHS. It is the envy of the world. Indeed people come from all over the world to absorb some of its beneficence and get well.

So I ask this. Why is this current government doing so much to undermine what is a part of the very fabric of our society? Why did the last Not-Real-Labour government do so much in that direction too…PFI (need one say more?)?

The National Health Service belongs to the people of the United Kingdom, it does not belong to the here today, gone tomorrow government, which incidentally, also belongs to the people of the United Kingdom.  HANDS OFF! GIVE IT BACK! 

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