Cancer Research UK this week published a report on the rise in preventable cancers. Also this week the Royal College of Nursing called for the scrapping of unfair parking charges at hospitals. On the surface there is little to connect these two demands except that the issue of parking charges is an example of a preventable cancer currently ravaging the NHS: the cancer of privatisation.
In most cases the reason why hospital car park charges are so expensive is that hospitals have leased out these car parks to private companies determined to make as much profit as possible. Privatisation is rampaging through the NHS like a plague. From private finance initiatives to the contracting out of cleaning services; from the sale of NHS land to the selling off of just about every other service which isn't nailed down.
Add to this a growth in the use of the private medical sector which would have melted the hearts of previous Conservative governments. The government claims that record amounts of taxpayers' money is going into the health service. What it doesn't tell us is how much is going out of the back door to subsidise the assortment of banks, property developers and private health sector, all of whom look upon the NHS the way sharks look upon a shoal of fish just before their feeding frenzy. What is also not explained is how any of this represents value for money or a better service. On the contrary, if one looks at the issue of hospital cleanliness there is considerable evidence that the decline started when cleaning services were contracting out to private companies which replaced the previous good standards with minimum standards.
Campaigns such as that of the Royal College of Nursing and others need to be supported. Privatisation is destroying the very fabric of the NHS, to the detriment of patients, hospital workers and the taxpayer. It is time for all three to say; the NHS is not for sale.
William Bonnar 129 Ardmory Avenue, Glasgow.
The criteria for allocation of staff permits for hospital parking will almost certainly ensure that top NHS managers will receive free parking on account of their perceived requirement to use their hospital-provided cars for frequent visits to alternative NHS sites.
Meanwhile, most frontline staff, patients and visitors will face hefty charges.
Does Animal Farm ring any bells?
David Marsh, 15 Laigh Road, Newton Mearns, Glasgow.
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