General Infirmary until the early part of this year. She explained what conditions were like in the hospital.
*t worked a 40-hour week. Until recently we got three days off a fortnight. This often meant 11 days at a stretch without a break, a total working time of BB hours.
Obviously this makes you buggered. You are tired and the patient is the one who suffers.
The shift started at 7,30. I had to get there 20 minutes before so that I could pet changed into my uniform. When we finihod work we achin had to go and change. The Leeds Gi had this stupid regulation that we must not wear our uniforms outside the hospital, 'We had a ten minute break in the norning for coffee - this was often nterrupted because we had to take a bent to thin theatre i were ta 101n one cup of coffee and two biscuits he cost was deducted from our wages.
lame af the sisters were so bloody mean they would take out two biscuits a nurse and lock the rest away.
"At dinner we got a half hour break. DRUGS ARE BIG BUSINESS and highly profitable. The big four of the British drug industry - Beechams, Welcome, Glaxo and Imperial Chemicals - had a return on capital in 1971 of 55 per cent, 18,1 per cent, 24 percent and 55 percent respectively.
Fisons pay 12,300 a ton for the raw material needed to make their anti-asthma drug Intal. They then market this at a cost to the NHS and the public of t2.8 million a ton. Their spokesman, when challenged about this, remarked he did not know how the figures had been obtained, as 'this type of information is confidential:
SPECIAL CASE The drug industry has always pleaded that it is a special case. Claiming that high profits are needed to finance its research activities. Research in the pharmaceuticals and toiletries industry accounts for a Fled Weekly - 25 July 1974 Page 4 room, queue-up, eat and get back to work. You felt so tire some days that you just could not be bothered getting in that damn queue so you went to the nurses' home, found a chair, flopped down and smoked * to The evening shift ran from 1.0 pm until 10.00 pm. If you dashed läce hell you could just get your uniform changed and grab a drink in the pub before they closed at 10.30 pm.
'Nights were raally grim. We started at 9.45 and finished at 8.00 am. Vie did seven ten-bour nights, which meant a working week of seventy hours. Two Student nurses had to look after a ward of thirty bids. This entailed a great daal. of responshility. In our second year we did not have the experience to doal properly with the three or four sarious cases that we often had under our charge.
"Busides working a forty hour week you have to study for your state finals. Aile gettag name cosolutely whacked out, you then had to start studying. A mate of mine worked until ten one night, got up the next day to do her finals - an eight-hour exam - and reported back for wark the next day. which would maintain a healthy Jabour force, in the most efficient manner, at the least cost.
up the "backlog' - the 1942 Bevernew health service would fill as Secondly, to concentrato its main attentions on preventative and curative medicine to provide it with a healthy, more productive labour - force from the defeats of the inter-war was therefore a big pressure for a new health service by the labour movement.
genice of interest between capital and labour. Labour politicians when Bevan introduced the NHS in 1947.
a step forward, it has always been subordinated to the needs of capitalism.
In 1971 the total cost of the run by local authorities totalled 12,300 million. Three quarters of this came from general taxation, A further 12 per cent was raised from the rates, bine per cent from NHS contributions and five per cent from charges to patients.
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Wages May 1973- £46-87 net for month for