My second visit to an NHS hospital in less than a week – neither time for me, I should add – and I remain at a complete loss to understand why the Tories hate the NHS in general and the junior doctors in particular. We should be in no doubt that the Tories do hate the NHS, regardless of their fluffy rhetoric that suggests the opposite. I suggest it is because the NHS is socialism in action.
I was fortunate enough to be with a junior doctor doing an exceptional job on a Sunday. So far as I could tell, he was not spending his day working out how much money he would be getting for his shift. He just came across as a great professional who was dedicated to make people better. He was doing a very good job.
I suspect it is hard for pampered millionaires, dedicated to screwing as much from the political system as possible, even many of them enter politics already richer than god, to understand that some people do jobs – like doctors, nurses and all the other great people who make our NHS what it is today – because they want to do good. Of course they want to be rewarded fairly – who doesn’t? – and I would say that whatever they get paid, it isn’t enough. The current dispute between doctors’ contracts and a government that fundamentally opposes the very existence of the NHS is about far more than just money.
Even on a Sunday, there were few signs of a day of rest at our local hospital. It could have been any day of the week. Do you know what? We already have the seven day a week NHS that Hunt supposedly wants.
As with my previous hospital visit, albeit at a different hospital, it was awesome to observe everything seemingly working like clockwork. Everyone from the Misters (consultants) at the top of the food chain to the cleaners somewhere lower had a purpose and no one seemed to stop. It was a wonder of the world.
Ambulances still roared up to A&E because people still have accidents and heart attacks at the weekend. No sense of panic from the paramedics – or Ambulance drivers, as Hunt calls them – because they know what they are doing and my God they do it so well.
I used the word awesome advisedly. It truly is. No one was waiting at the door for our wallets and insurance policies, no one waiting outside our doors if we couldn’t afford to pay for our cancer treatment. The NHS, free at the point of use, for everyone at anytime.
Guard this NHS with your life because your life might depend on it one day. We have much to be proud of in this country but nothing comes close to the NHS, the very epitome of a civilised society.
I told our doctor that I liked him even if Jeremy Hunt didn’t. He thanked me for saying that but I was the one who owed him thanks.
