the National Health Service.
the attacks of the Wilson Government.
The demand for an end to the cuts in NHS expenditure, and the immediate injection of funds into the NHS, is the most common theme. As the resolution from the Socialist Medical Association points out, these steps are necessary to recruit new staff and resurrect the building programme. They add: *In future, health expenditure should be linked to price and wage indices to protect the NHS from further Such a policy is essential if inflation is not to eat away any in crease of funds put into the NHS. Equally essential is the nationalisation of the drugs and medical supply mousures, when comes up ame and time again in the resolutions.
The problem, however, is that these resolutions do not spell out how to fight for such policies. A typical example is the resolution from Southampton Test CLP. This starts off: This conference notes with dismay the growing inadequacy of the NHS through lack of money, bureaucratic organisation, and leeching by the forces of profit.
Nowhere in this resolution, nor in most of the others, is the blame for this put on those responsible. here sor one word or onucism of the Wilson Government which has imposed the cuts in spending, and carried through the re-organisation and rationalisation of the NHS by such 'bureaucratic organisations as the Area Health Authorities. No Private Practice The resolutions in general give implicit endorsement to the Castle proposals on private practice, ignoring the fact that these proposals, whilst phasing out private practice inside the NHS, allow private medicine and the building of private hospitals outside the NHS. cuts and resulting deterioration of the NHS in itself also gives a shot in the arm to the plans of the insurance companies to create a national private neat service.
Even in strong union lirms, management can get away with perks such as private health insurance, simply because many working class people realise that this is a way to get treatment at the time it's needed - something a run-down NES cannot dO. The answer to this type of class-collaboration is given in the Croydon Central CLP resolution which says, nationalise without compensation all private hospitals and dental clinics; thus opposing all private practice.
Just exposing' the Government is not enough. The class-collaboration of the Government's policies on health runs right through their policies on incomes, unemployment, education abortion. ant most re cently on Portugal. Any real fight to defend the health service from the capitalist policies of the Wilson Government has to be taken up as part of the fight to remove the Wilson leadership and smash all those capitalist policies.
The resolutions to the Labour Party conference do little to mobilise within the working class for this.
Quite the opposite. All the resolutions rely totally on the Labour Government to implement these The resolutions that appear on tne agenda for the Labour Party Conference indicate the deep concern in the labour movement over the crisis inside The resolutions take up almost every aspect of the crisis in the NHS, from private practice to the role of the drug companies. Many of them call for policies that the left should be fignting for to defend the NHS against Rich Palser policies. Very few resolutions so much as mention the need for solidarity with workers struggling for such policies. Yet a resolution passed at conference calling for the opening of the books of the drug companies, for instance, would be a big step towards mobilising the working class around the need for the nationalisation of these firms. If the workers movement were to begin to examine the way in which research is carried out according to what is profitable and expose before class the anarchy of the pharmaceutical industry under capitalism, a gigantic step forward would have been made in organising whole sections of the working class in the fight for the nationalisation of the drug companies and for workers control over that industry.
The members of the Labour Party who support the resolutions defending the NHS against the Wilson-led attacks can help to put bite into these resolutions by building for and attending the MCAPP Conference - Fight the Cuts in the NHS' - being held in London on 11 October. The Conference aims to lay the basis for a broad united response in the workers movement which will not only resist the cutbacks in the NHS, but will advance the fight for a health service based on the needs of the working class. the gaze of the whole of the working Organised by been elected (for a hospital bed Labour movement conference on the fight against the cuts in the NHS City University London. October 11 Chaired by Jack Collins speakers include -Audrey Wise MP and health workers: Medical Committee Against Private Practice 55 Bridge Lane London NW I| the Greater Manchester Branch of the SMA, Frenchay Hospital Joint Stewards: Com New sponsors for the MCAPP Conference include the Socialist Medical Association, mittee (Bristol), West Ham Trades Council, ASTMS Bristol Health Branch, and COHSE Branch Stafford Hospital.