DON’T LET THEM STEAL OUR NHS!

Public meeting at Pleasley Miner’s Welfare Tuesday 5th August, 7.30pm

Speakers:

Alan Meale MP for Mansfield and Gail Cartmail, Assistant General Secretary of Unite the Union Come and hear the case for defending our NHS and what we can do to ensure that the NHS remains free at the point of need! Tell your family, friends and neighbours about the meeting and encourage them to come along. There will be plenty of time for your questions to be answered and plenty of time to get involved in our campaign to save our NHS.

DON’T LET US BE PUSHED BACK TO A TIME WHEN ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE IS ON THE BASIS OF YOUR ABILITY TO PAY!
PLAY YOUR PART IN ENSURING THAT HEALTH CARE IS AVAILABLE TO ALL ON THE BASIS OF CLINICAL NEED AND FREE AT THE POINT OF DELIVERY.

OUR HEALTH SERVICE UNDER THREAT!

Since the passage of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act our NHS is increasingly under threat of being privatised. If this is allowed to continue, in a very short period of time access to health services will be on the basis of being able to pay and not on clinical need.

From the founding of the NHS in 1947 health care in this country has been free at the point of need. Its founder Aneurin Bevan said ‘Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay nor an offence for which they should be punished but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community’.

This principle is now under direct threat and we face the prospect of our NHS being run by private healthcare companies and the cost of treatment being met by private health insurance on the same lines as the U.S. The cost of such insurance could be as much as £3000 a year for a family and £1000 a year for a single person with no guarantee that this insurance will cover all your health needs particularly if your condition is long lasting. The Government has already suggested that ‘elective’ surgery such as hip and knee replacements should be paid for by the individual and not available on the NHS!

During its existence the NHS has served the people of this country well. Childhood illnesses such as measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlet fever amongst others have been virtually eliminated and are no longer the killers that were so common prior to the founding of the NHS.

Life expectancy has increased massively, now standing at an average of 78 for man and 81 for women. Giant strides have been made in the treatment of cancer along with a whole range of illnesses.

Without the NHS little or none of this would have been available to the majority of working people in this country.