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A referendum on privatisation is the healthy optionNEW Labour appears to be in the grip of a critical bout of self-harm.
It is difficult to imagine a cause more likely to lose support for New Labour than its obsession to privatise the National Health Service come what may (See page 7).
First, New Labour started this year to dismantle the intricate network of local post offices.
With every local post office that has been closed down, votes have begun to drain away from the government.
The cause of recent by-election disasters could be partly traced back to this closure programme.
Suspicion of New Labour – an unhealthy condition – abounds among hospital staff and family doctors.
On the surface, Lord Darzi’s proposal to create large polyclinics has its attractions.
Such clinics have functioned efficiently in different parts of the world for decades.
But the suspicion that large corporations such as Virgin are waiting in the wings in order to step in and take over these clinics is unshakeably rooted in the minds of critics in the medical world.
The fact that Primary Care Trusts are – relatively speaking – now rushing to sell GP surgeries, including those in Camden, to corporations underscores these suspicions.
Here in Camden come the US company UnitedHealth – and out go popular family doctors!
Sniffing votes, the Conservatives are chasing health minister Ben Bradshaw to disclose what he knows about the sale to UnitedHealth.
The call for a referendum in Camden on privatisation plans makes sense.
Let it be put to the public. Who better to decide how they should be medically treated than the public?
WHENEVER officialdom starts thinking about how to improve the Heath be warned! Something may be afoot.
Careful investigation is required to make sure the historic Heath remains protected. It may well be that the plans of the City of London to build a new road on the edges of the Heath present no danger to the integrity of the Heath (See page 8).
But residents of Lissenden Gardens are distressed about the road expansion and that alone should ring alarm bells for the local authority.
It is to be hoped that if the residents cannot be persuaded of the soundness of the proposal the City of London will quietly shelve it. |
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