Revolutionary Ideas from the B.M.A

NHS review 'should be for benefit of patients'

After decades of  misdirection of medical priorities and the totally blinkered view that cost-cutting within health services is the only basis for economic salvation, the British Medical Association makes this revolutionary statement.  Until now, the B.M.A. have been one of the myriad of sycophantic mumblers that have supported the changes to N.H.S. Wales despite serious misgivings expressed on behalf of their members - the General Practitioners.

Like most of us, they hoped that Care in the Community would become a viable reality with 'bed equivalents' being created to compensate for the massive reduction in hospital beds. Needless to say, these hollow promises have proven to be a myth, used to mask the government's priority of reducing health spending, throughout Wales by as much as a billion pounds.Now, we all find ourselves in the lost world between heaven and hell where the hell of inadequate health service provision has succeeded in dragging us away from the Shangri-La that we were led to believe would be a'Service Fit for Purpose' ( whatever the hell that was supposed to mean ).

The naivety we lived in was based on a belief that our elected government really did have our best interests at heart and, when it came to the health of its citizens, the Welsh Government would place the provision of healthcare at the pinnacle of public services, essential to our future development as individuals and as a nation.  Now, ashamed of our own complacency, we face having to make do with health services that are woefully inadequate to meet our needs.  How did we let this happen - were we sleepwalking or just too lazy to keep up with changing events ?

A few of us have been campaigning for well over a decade to stop the decimation of our health services, for the mentally ill and those of us with physical ailments requiring inpatient care at one of our many hospitals.  My friends and colleagues;  Greta Sainsbury, Max Wallis, Eifion Edwards, Margo Farbrace, Pamela Flowers, Lynnette Spragg, Francis Creemer, and a host of their friends and colleagues have devoted a part of their lives to helping the sick, the elderly and the vulnerable being able to feel confident that their health services were being maintained and even improved.  I could fill a book with the names of medical staff,at all levels, that have helped us with reports of the reality of modern healthcare, as opposed to the fantasy world, created in the minds of our incompetent government and N.H.S officials. For every good report their are a dozen horror stories of the deliberate manipulation of waiting lists, failed care and deaths of patients in hospital or at home awaiting essential surgery.

To return to the main point of this post, it is Dr Richard Lewis, Welsh Secretary of the British Medical Association crystalises the one absolute truth - that the N.H.S should be reviewed for patients rather than financial pressures.

I conclude by stating the obvious - the National health Service is an essential Public Service that is not a 'private, for profit organisation' from any Point of View. Therefore, the costs of providing adequate health care at the time and the point of need is non-negotiable and must be met by our government.   R.W.