COHSE ate patients. private patients.
After thirteen hours of double-dealing with the British Medical immediate reduction of private beds. Until the findings of the Working Party are reported the policy of the Government will be to allow private beds to stay. The future of private patients will depend on the findings of the Working Party.
Interpretations vary. Stevenson BMA secretary has neither condoned bospitals and the psychistric haspitals, ner accepted the concept of the abolition of private beds in public hospit als." Dix, the spokesman fur NUPE, claims that the BMA has compromised by accepting as inevitable that private patients will be phased out.
But it is the action of the health workers at Charing Cross, Followed up by warkers in other bospitals which shows how to phase out privDEPENDENT These workers were not kidded by the threats of the consultants that to the NHS. they would withdraw from the NHS.
Consultants are completely dependent on the NHS. They are dependent on the resources of the NHS, resources paid for by the working class Moder medicine needs enurmous funds to purchase complex and sophisticated equipment. The consult- class want to extend not only these ants use this equipment for their In 1948 Bevan accepted that to get the service of the consullants you had to bribe them. The nurses, ancillary workers und NHS employees had to settle for poverty-line wages. This has meant that the consultants have sold their labour at outrageously high prices while they in return had the use of cheap NHS labour for their private practice.
The private patients allocation of two per cent of hospital beds is a Saturday -27 July - 11 am University of London Students" Union, Malet St., WC1 organised by centrat London Branch, AS TMS and sponsorod by other trade union branches Decans fram: Colin Smirit, 18 Fite Strpor, London, NT. misleading figuro. In the provincial the allocation often falls well below two per cent. This is then averaged out by hoosting the number of beds used in the main centres. The new Royal Free in London allows five per cent of its beds to private patjents. The longest waiting lists are in those areas where the number of private beds is the highest.
Even BUPA - the private health insurance scheme, admitted in its evidence to the Select Report that it was impossible to have an alternative The extension of private patients s an integral part of the capitalist plans to solve their crisis.
Charges for NHS treatment, already account for six per cent of the total budget. Faced with a crippling crisis of social expenditure, the capitalist charges, but to jnvolve even wider sections in the private patients scheme. This would mean better paid workers' forking out for these schemes and the poorer paid sections being made dependent on a decaying underequipped, run-down NHS. The Health workers have the power to close close down private wards. By using that power now, and imposing workers cuntrol in the hospilals, they can foree the Labour Government to introduce a complete ban on private practice in the NHS.
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Association Mrs Castle has come out with a sell-out formula. Put bluntly, the settlement means status quo. There will be no
one day conference CRISIS IN THE HEALTH SERVICE