Vol. 77/No. 15      April 22, 2013

About 10 percent of emergency departments and maternity wards, and 6 percent of pediatric units have been shut or face closure, affecting up to one-fifth of National Health Service hospitals in England. Patients requiring immediate emergency care are waiting more than half a day for a bed, with 5 percent waiting 11 hours or more. Cataract eye surgery and hip and knee replacements — considered of “low clinical value” — are officially being rationed.

A recent government report on conditions at hospitals in Mid-Staffordshire, in the center of England, revealed that up to 1,200 patients died over a four-year period largely as a result of poor hygiene and other problems resulting from budget cuts.

According to 2011 figures from the Office for National Statistics:

—43 hospital patients starved to death and 111 died of thirst; a total of 558 health care patients died in a state of dehydration;

—78 hospital and 39 care home patients died as a result of bedsores, while a further 650 people had sores noted on their death certificates;

—21,696 were recorded as suffering from septicemia when they died, a condition most often associated with infected wounds.

The Health Service Ombudsman last year condemned the National Health Service for “inhumane treatment.” His investigation found patients were left hungry, unwashed or given the wrong drugs. An inquest into the death of a young hospital patient last year revealed that he called 9-9-9 emergency to request police intervention because he was so thirsty.

Over the past 10 years, the number of preventable deaths at 14 of the country’s 140 hospital trusts is “a bit over 20,000,” according to findings published by Brian Jarman, a government adviser.

Government officials have launched a campaign to scapegoat nurses — claiming that hygiene problems stem from nurses who often consider themselves “too posh to wash.” At the same time, the government is slashing the number of nurses. Today there are 6,000 fewer than three years ago, according to the Royal College of Nursing.

‘Efficiency savings’

The attacks are being promoted under the pretense of protecting the health budget. “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” announced Prime Minister David Cameron when standing for election in January 2010. Not only does this ignore the real cuts being carried out under the banner of efficiency savings, it also masks the fact that with rising health service costs, maintaining the same nominal spending level results in a real terms decrease. In 2011 the decrease amounted to £857 million ($1,300 million), according to the Health Service Journal.

The national health care system, enacted by the Labour government of Clement Atlee in 1948, was a gain won in struggle by working people coming out of World War II.

Speaking in Parliament in 1943 in support of moves being considered by the wartime government of Winston Churchill to establish a range of social welfare protections, Conservative Party Member of Parliament Quintin Hogg told Tory MPs, “If you do not give the people social reform, they are going to give you social revolution.”

Millions have taken advantage of what they won to get access to health care, previously denied to them.

But common perceptions peddled by the “left” that the NHS provides universal free care at the point of need, or that the NHS is “ours,” are not accurate.

Not only are people charged for a range of things, including eyeglasses, dentistry and prescriptions. But all government-funded social services are “paid for” through wealth created by the labor of working people. In the case of the NHS, this takes the form of substantial sales and income taxes.

The NHS functions as a cash cow for drug companies, which are able to inflate prices given the understanding relationship they have with their exchequer-funded customer. And senior doctors — consultants and surgeons — count on inflated incomes and use NHS facilities for their private practice. In addition, the bloated self-serving bureaucracy, which dominates the NHS and which grew massively under the latest Labour government, milks its share.

The increasing commodification of the government-funded health care system under the impact of the capitalist crisis is reflected in changing language itself — many hospitals routinely now refer to patients as “customers.”

At the center of the reorganization of the NHS are moves to deepen the influence of market mechanisms, for example, by expanding competition from private health companies and making local doctors responsible for the budget in their areas.

The changes are designed to increase pressure to make cost a decisive factor in decisions and priorities. General practitioners facing “efficiency savings” pressure are already making such choices.

As a result, an increasing number of workers often go to emergency rooms to avoid long waiting lists for an appointment, or because they anticipate they won’t otherwise get referrals for specialist treatment because of cost. Last year, one-quarter of cancer sufferers were refused referral to oncology specialists when they first visited a general practitioner.  
 
 
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