18.01.1996

Emergency action needed

LAST WEEK’S report by the British Medical Association on NHS casualty units demonstrates that stories of dismal breakdown of the accident and emergency service are not isolated incidents, but paint an accurate picture across the whole country.

Whipps Cross hospital in East London has been on “red alert”. Ambulances were admitted only for resuscitation emergencies. John Loxley, the Unison rep, told us:

“The problem is a shortage of staff, and so a shortage of beds which can be put into service. Morale is so low and the stress is so acute that this just adds to the problem of people going sick.”

Yet over £100 million a year is now being spent on redundancies, while one in six acute beds have been lost since 1990, when the internal market was introduced. A worker at Christie’s hospital in Manchester, which specialises in cancer treatment, told us how this occurs: “Purchasers such as fund-holding GPs have to buy our services, which means a large slice is taken from their budget. So they often refer patients directly to a general surgeon, who may attempt chemotherapy or radiotherapy themselves. This is a bit like me trying to unblock the sink instead of calling a plumber.”

The Labour Party, for all its sniping at these glaring failures, is committed to the same basic medicine. Like the Tories, it peddles the lie that we can no longer ‘afford’ an all-embracing health service. What they mean is capitalism no longer wishes to fund it.

It is time for workers to take some emergency action of their own.