YOU'LL KNOW about cuts affecting. general hospitals.
Government picked up the health axe in the mid-1970s, there have campaigns to save casualty departments and small hospitals from closure, 80,000 strong demonstration by public sector workers themselves, almost three years ago. • Just last month there was a march in Hemel Hempstead to demand a general hospital in the towll, Which had been promised ages ago. Ten thousand demonstrated, closing local factories. In London the EGA battles on.
But there are sectors of health care which make the only uncovered, and don't often catch the attention of anti-cuts campaigners.
• Yet even the official government reports describe geriatric and psychiatric care as the 'poor sisters' of the health service, and the Tories' policy of boosting private medicine at the expense of the NHS will help the authorities to ensure that the elderly and the mentally ill continue to suffer and die invisibly.
So, with Fightback's conterence taking place next Saturday, a few facts and images neglect of many of those whom this society would like to bury.
lake a couple of common among the elderly severely affect eyesight, which make it painful to stand. Both can be treated by simple and inexpensive operations, yet the queue for health care means a wait of up to two years.
Part of the reason for this is that many of the geriatric beds in hospitals are occupied by people who could manage in an old people's home or, with help, in the community. In spite of the fact that the population is ageing, the Since Labour been many local as well as an most of the when scandal 'Health — not cuts' to ilaminate the terrible - cataracts, which can and varicose veins, is anywhere near adequate.
There is another reason. Small hospitals have been the favourite for the axe. In London, for example, they will take the brunt of the 35 per cent reduction in beds that the health authorities are aiming for.
Yet it is the small hospitals which care for those who need nursing technical treatment, and their closure means that the elderly have to compete — usually unsuccessfully — for the shrinking number of medical and surgical beds.
Even toe nails can be crippling. They gel tougher when you're old, and you're likely to find it hard to bend down to reach them. But is there adequate chiropody for the aged? Is there hell.
When elderly often to be told: 'Well, it's your age:' Often, it isn't. It's the overwork, rotten housing, and the rest of the lousy social condițions this society flings at them. correct none of this, but they will do their best to cut what little health and social services have A similar story can be told of the mentally ill: over-crowded, under-staffed Victorian piles in the middle of posing as psychiatric hospitals; shrouded in breaks to expose a tragedy of patient abuse.
'The Way Ahead', an amusing document produced by the Department of Health in 1977 to spell out the priorities for the NHS, geriatric and psychiatric care at the top of the list. So much of a priority, in fact, that their share of the health budget was to be increased, respectively, from 13.6 to 13.7 per cent, and from 7.5 to 7.9 per cent over the succeeding four years.
Meanwhile, Thatcher's promise of paying for the increase in wages for NHS workers by care rather than people visit their GP, it's The Tories, of course, will under-funded, Silence until another scandal put slashing the cash limits for the health service will close more hospitals, put more staff on the dole queues, and leave more patients on the waiting lists or in the wards to rot.
How to reverse these cuts and fight for a socialist health service is the task that the Fightback conference has set itself. Be there, on Saturday 30 June, 10am to 5.30pm, at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1. There is a social in the evening beginning at 7pm. 7-15 JULY.
The top theoretical ovent in the Marxia Seng offered ore and at time Further details from CUL 11, 16 King Street, London WC2 Socialist Challenge 28 June 1979 Page 5