I had a great conversation on @LBC with @RachelSJohnson about the #NHS crisis. We spoke about the 4 major NHS problems of funding, staff, beds, and social care. She asked me to prove what I was saying. This is what I told her. #SOSNHS
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I then spoke to @RachelSJohnson about how the NHS is the most efficient healthcare system in the world and I convinced her that a private health insurance scheme will do nothing to help patients. She was convinced. #SOSNHS
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I then spoke to @RachelSJohnson about why I love the NHS and some solutions to the staffing crisis including a visa/ILR waiver scheme and citizenship for immigrant pandemic workers — just like they've done in 🇫🇷 — and why NHS workers desperately need a pay rise. #SOSNHS
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And lastly, @RachelSJohnson and I summarise our chat and discuss the need for her brother's government to take this seriously. We're in the midst of the greatest crisis in NHS history and we need a government that actually listens to NHS leaders. #SOSNHS
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Addendum: Here's the @commonwealthfnd chart I referenced in the first video that shows that the UK had the best healthcare system in the world 10 years ago.
This is the anatomy of a militant takeover of your public healthcare system:
- Take the #1 healthcare system on Earth
- Defund it by £320 billion over a decade
- Force doctors and nurses to leave country
- Engineer the longest waitlist in NHS history
- Hold patients hostage to private healthcare
- Get the public sick, angry, out of work
- Call the sick public “generation sicknote”
- Mandate employers pay for private care
This is how they’ll continue to funnel billions more of your public money into the private sector, propping them up at the expense of your NHS, under the guise of “reducing the benefits bill and boosting the economy.” They could have simply funded the NHS and we wouldn’t be such a sick and out of work nation.
And so when we talk about the creation of a two-tier system, this is exactly what we mean: rapid access to a doctor for the wealthy on private healthcare, and years-long waits to see a non-doctor in the NHS.
The @Conservatives goal has always been to turn your NHS into an American privatised nightmare — just like the one I grew up in where healthcare is obtained through the employer at massive cost to both employer and employee — and it’s all happening right under your nose, without your consent.
So please wake up and stop letting them steal your healthcare from you and your family. They are not going to improve your healthcare, they’re simply going to take it away, only to sell it right back to you.
If you value the health of your family, never vote for them ever again.
#SOSNHS
Here’s the full article, behind a paywall, of course
Yes, the NHS was ranked the #1 healthcare system on the planet 10 years ago. It’s amazing how people in the UK who call themselves patriots are so quick to deny you had the best healthcare system in the world just a decade ago. Most countries would be really proud of that achievement.
This is what is happening in the privatised American healthcare system right now. The greed of UnitedHealth is insatiable and it hurts clinicians and patients alike. It gets worse: this same company operates right here in the UK.
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#SOSNHS
They just bought the UK company EMIS, which most GP surgeries use for your data.
13 years ago you inherited the #1 ranked healthcare system on the planet and look what you've done. We now have the longest GP, A&E, outpatient, and cancer waiting times in NHS history. 7.3m people long. You don't deserve power. You deserve prison.
It's absolutely true that 10 years ago the NHS was ranked the #1 healthcare system in the world. We were not perfect and still had plenty to work on but we were performing better than any other healthcare system on the planet.
I'm an NHS A&E immigrant doctor making £14/hr here working in London. I volunteered twice during the pandemic to be redeployed to the COVID-19 wards. Last week I paid £500 for visas for myself and my partner. We can't afford our bills. Please help.
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We international NHS doctors and nurses fought hard to protect this country during the pandemic, and a disproportionate number of clinician deaths came from our ranks. Many of our colleagues sacrificed their lives to protect this country.
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Yet we pay these fees every year and some international colleagues of mine are being charged £10,000 for their indefinite leave to remain applications for their families. These pandemic heroes are being forced to pay eye-watering sums (for us) just to stay here and work.