The chances of petring a bed are Even within the meagre resources *Present levels of capital expenditure Sounds fine, until you realise the "There are, of course, very severe shortages of manpower within the NHS. Gerialrtree to choose.
CYNICISM there is a patient-tordoctor rutio of 660 to il may be true that present levels As the White Paper has to admit "Many important schemes.. will have likely to have to be significantly modilied.' On the other hand, Harold knows on which side of capitalism his bread human life more liveable, The notion that medical people should be allowed to get on with their But Ife under capitalism is not like that. Medicine as a business is no beller than any other business. In fact it is oven worse, for the mixing up of a prolession designed for service with the business of making money is corrupting in practice and as a spectacle is obscene.
When some well-groomed cons ultant sounds forth on the right to choose he is passionately interested in freedom. But he means freedom for a small clique of wealthy people who have the right to pay him the highest fees he can screw out of them For the poor, the aged, and the millions of less fortunate, they are free to join an interminable quenc for treatment. They are free to suffer a lousy declining health service. However, they are able to console themselves with the thought that if they had the money they also would be Privato medicine is a booming business these days. It is permeated with a sick cynicism whuch puts even some of the more conventional capiralist selling methods in the shade. Worried by the crumbiing of the NHS, lots of people are enticed into joling private bealth insurance Slick advertising assures them of a more personal service designed for the sensitive man and woman. Eniph axis is put on the persona attention patients allegedly get and the huck sters who write the glossy brochures for these private schemes rutblessiy play on the fears and anxieties of their prospective clients However, the reality is different. The linee million members of private insurance schemes receive a less than good return for their averape subscription of 173 a year. The Nuffield Hospital at Woking, lor CONSULTANTS KNIFE THE example -run by BUPA the biggest oi the private health insurance schemes is hardly the epitome of superb medical cure OUT FA There are no residential medica officers in the hospital, so if some patient suffers a relapse during the night they have to drum up a doct from outside, otherwise all they ca do is send for the chel!
Not does the hospital bave a pre perly equipped pathology laboratc which does constitute something a handicap wben quick and serious investigitions are needed.
Drugs, sedatives and pain-killers are indispensable in bospitais. They sould always bo avallable in adeo uate supply and surplus stocks of the less used materiais should be or hand for emergencies. This is why dispensary • vital in a hospital. At Woking there is no dispensary anc
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MOST WORKERS have a respect for the medical profession. They like the idea of people providing a service by healing the sick and trying to make
socially useful job without having to hawk their practice around like touts would, and does. find popular acclaim in the workers movement.
GET I DOC QUICK HE'S FE