The fact that the cuts in the White Paper were not even larger and a lot to do with the mounting resistance inside the labour movement to the attacks on the health service. But if this resistance is to go beyond merely "moderating' the extent of the cuts, then now is not the time to sigh with relief like COHSE. The danger of the growth of private practice spurred by the cuts has to be recognised and fought.
This means fighting inside the workers movement for the recall of the TUC, in order to challenge the TUC leaders' collaboration with Wilson in carrying out the cuts, and prepare a united response by the whole of the movement. The main step being taken at present towards this is the 25 April demonstration called by the National Co-ordinating Committee Against Cuts in the NHS and supported by NALGO demanding an end to all private practice and an end to all cuts. We ask Red Weekly supporters to make this a central focus that can begin to build such a response inside all une bodies of the workers movement.
INADEQUATE What the White Paper has done is to attempt to limit the effect of the cuts by making the main reduction in the capital building programme. Out of a total cut of £150 million, £80m will come off the building of new hospitals and facilities. It is hoped that by doing this the existing services will not have to be reduced. The problem is that these are already hopelessly inadequate.
The plan produced last year by the Department of Health and Social Security to re-allocate funds from so-called well-provided regions such as London and Merseyside to the less well-off regions (reckoned to be every other region in the country!) was greetea in some quarters as a great step forward.
However, the diverted resources will hardly be much help when these regions are already beig toreca to make arastic curs 'MASSIVE CUTS The Trent region, which is held up as an example of the poor relation in the NHS by advocates of reallocation', is itself predicting that it will have to make 'massive cuts' next year, in spite of the injection of re-allocated funds! At the same time, the regions which have suddenly become over-richly endowed are closing hospitals and cutting staffing levels and services for lack of money, thus making already inadequate services (Merseyside has Health bloody but not bowed' was the headline of the Guardian, apologising for the cuts in health expenditure contained in Healey's White Paper. This theme - that the NHS has come through relatively unscathed, thanks to Barbara Castle's supposed fight against cuts in health spending - has been taken up by the entire capitalist press. It has also found an echo in the workers movement - for example the Confederation of Health Service Employees said that there was some relief in the programme as it would obviate a serious reduction in existing services'. Now it is clearly true that the cuts in health are nowhere near as extensive as those in education, but that has little or nothing to do with the personal exploits of Barbara Castle.
La waiting list for treatment of over 25,600) even worse!
Such are the bare economic bones of Labour's policy towards the NHS.
But it is important to get an overview of the priorities reflected in these cuts.
Although an important gain for the working class, the NHS has always worked predominantly in the interests of the capitalist class.
This class interest is embedded in the concepts of medicine propagated by the medical profession: that sickness can only be cured on an individual basis by the use of drugs and surgery, and that social factors in illness are almost negligible. This has led to a concentration on so-called acute illnesses such as cancer and heart disease at the expense of 'chronic' sickness.
ABYSMAL Such a bias can be seen in the resources allocated to mental illness, for example. By the 1970s, over 40 per cent of all NHS beds were in mental hospitals - but only 11 per cent of consultants worked in such hospitals, and they received only 20 percent of the current health budget. And mental patients are not the only Cinderellas of the NHS. The old, the physically handicapped and women also receive an abysmal standard of care.
Such priorities in health care fit the needs of capitalism very well.
The investment of resources in curing a productive worker of an * 'acute' sickness comes before spending money on those who suffer from illnesses which mean they are unlikely to be useful to capital as WOTKOIS.
HOW TO CUT The clearest indication of current priorities is a document produced by the 'Medical Priorities Group" of the Oxford Area Health Authority. which lists 60 ways of making cuts. It proposes that preventative and occupational services should be reduced; that the levels of treatment of the old (geriatrics) could be drastically reduced; that outlying maternity units could be closed; that the number of abortions should be reduced; that the casualty departments in eight areas could be closed; that the activities of the psychiatric sector are not of the highest priority'; that all hospital family planning clinics be closed; and that the proposed new units, particularly concerned with the treatment of the old, young disabled and with the care of those with artificial kidneys should simply not be built. NUPE initiated this demo not iust be government are affected by the cuts, but also because the cuts affect the living standards of the whole labour movement. NUPE nationally is absolment's policies in relation to public Government is also contrary to the all redundancies in the public sector.
new Accident Hospital, no new Chilital. Plans for extensions to existing nospitals nave also been cover for that person's work.
Such plans more examples from every area in the country - not only show the utter callousness of capitalism's attempt to solve its crisis at the expense of the working class; they also reveal the chaos which inevitably results. The NHS is short of over 70,000 nurses, but in many on qualifying. For example, the to sack at least 280 nurses in the next year (apart from almost 50 clerical workers and over 450 ancillary workers).
that while the majority of hopital building programmes are being cut to the bone, there are 200,000 building workers unemployed and massive stock piles of bricks in the brickyards. While Concordes are built to fly executives to visit the sheiks of Bahrein, people are dying because of a lack of kidney NHS has already reached such a point that exisiting services are unable to cope effectively with the The annual increase in expenditure cause its members in health and local utely opposed to the Labour Governexpenditure. The policy of the Labour resolution moved by NUPE and passed at the 1975 Labour Party Conference. NUPE's policy is one of opposition to In Birmingham there have already been substantial cuts. There will be no crens hospital. ane no new eve noso cancelled There is also a policy of leaving vacancies unfilled. On this we have a similar policy to the National Union of Teachers.
were a vacancy is len untued tor more than a few days, our members will not We have just had a dispute over manning levels at Mosely Hall Hospital. Here the workforce and management agreed and there are many working class.
areas recruitment has been stopped, and nurses are even made redundant South Glamorgan AHA is proposing Such is the anarchy of capitalism Thus the deterioration of the health needs of working class people. the cuts. The fight-back has to be organis ec at two levers. local and national Loo ally a lead has been given by this demo and the Birmingham Campaign Against the Cuts (BCAC), to which l am the delegate from the NUPE area commtree. at a national lever a tiant baci has to be organised against the policies or ine maoour Government an a ter native programme to the cuts has to be developed.
ne poncy orasucing scale or our lic expenditure, as was adopted by the 19/2 Labour Party conterence, must b the minimum we demand. There must also be an immediate injection of cash into the NHS and the other areas of socially useful expenditure. As part of the national struggle we will be mobilisaing for the NCC/ NALGO demo on Anotner important step tnat must also be taken locally and nationally is to campaign for a workers inquiry, to explain what cuts are taking place, org anise a response, and develop an alternative programme.
replaced with a health service meeting fully the health needs of the working class, but with a two-tier health service a private health service for those that can afford it and a crippled NHS for those that cannot.