22 Comments
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Avril Silk's avatar

To those who drip feed us right wing revisionism , destroy hope and undermine decency here's quote from a favourite film - The Outlaw Josey Wales: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

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Boyd Lynn's avatar

Fantastic quote. I remember seeing it in the cinema with my dad.

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Andrea Jennings's avatar

Firstly thanks for watching GB news so that I don’t have to. Secondly I think tax as a concept needs a total rebrand. It’s like tax is the big bad wolf and public services are not even in the same fairytale. I would love to see the two things linked far more closely, this is what we all contribute to so that we can all benefit. We each pay according to our means but we all benefit from everyone having good services. Tax isn’t a punishment nor should it be a political tool to frighten us its just as much of a privilege to pay tax as to crowdfund you just don’t know the name of the child who needs the insulin.

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Seajade's avatar

Fight for it every day, it could be a gold standard with the right funding, wake up Reeves, tax the bloody parasites.

The alternative is what I see here in SE Asia, bloody frightening, people with crippling disabilities because they had to choose between feeding their family or healthcare.

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Jane Lennie's avatar

Another injustice was sending a member of your family to the workhouse to "pay" for your hospital treatment. My Gran had to when Mum, at 12, broke her leg.

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Billy5959's avatar

My grandmother was a midwife in Lancashire in the 30s and 40s. Families who could afford her would paid her pennies a week to have a midwife at the home birth. She was extremely proud to be in the first cohort of District Midwives employed by the NHS when Bevan created it in 1948. From then on, she was available to all. Delivering over 3000 babies in her home town before retiring. The difference between having no NHS and having the NHS was night and day for poor people.

The shame of the Workhouse lingered long after abolition, so that even in the 1980s elderly people in my grandmother's town would resist admission to a particular District hospital, because it had been the workhouse. .

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Bill Samuel's avatar

And don't forget that the gem which is the NHS was created in the financial chaos of the aftermath of war, an amazing example of 'building back better'. A stark contrast to our recent Conservative government who saw the chaos brought by Covid as an opportunity to loot the Treasury through the VIP lane.

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Sharon's avatar

My family and I have so much to be grateful for.

The NHS saved my stepdad last July from a massive stroke.

It saved my life February this year after being in hospital 5 times in 8 months and ended up having emergency treatment and operation ( still recovering and being looked after by the NHS) and today my mum went in for a scan ,the doctors picked up on some things and currently being monitored in hospital.

If this had been America and had to pay for the fabulous treatment we received , we would be bankrupt as the hospital fees would have been horrendous.

The NHS has to be protected from going the American way.

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A View from the Cheaper Seats's avatar

The myth of self-regulating markets always makes me laugh. The rules are written by the ones cashing in. Letting the fox write the henhouse safety manual.

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Philippa Taylor's avatar

The NHS needs funding properly and regular maintenance to keep it working properly. Its staff need better support as well. It needs regular improvements- what long running system doesn’t. We all need to understand this. I know I wouldn’t be here without it and I’m immensely grateful to live in a country where my parents didn’t become bankrupt to keep me alive.

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Mark Williams's avatar

I love the NHS. That’s my opener. At its best, it’s imho the best in the world. At its worst, it’s awful. Maybe, maybe we should not have privatised… telecoms, gas, water (tho not here in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 thankfully), rail etc. and not all us bad with those… but we absolutely 💯 should not privatise the NHS.

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JenX Official's avatar

I wish the UK leaders would stop copying shitty American policies,

Sincerely,

An American who feels that healthcare is a right, not a privilege.

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Elaine Maisey's avatar

I just despair at the level of these people who are just so ignorant, spouting complete rubbish just with the purpose of trying to divide people. How and why they're allowed to do this is completely beyond me and it needs stopping.

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Mike Lowres's avatar

I love the NHS it has treated me when needed and kept my wife alive for 52 years when she should have died. She was diagnosed with cancer of the womb at 14 years old in 1973. She went from puberty to menopause over night with no HRT, it wasn't a thing in 73.

Is the NHS fit for the 21st Century, no. It needs a massive overhaul in its IT systems, it needs a huge amount of funding to give what they need for treatment. If you treat the knees and hip replacements so people can get back to work the welfare bill will come down, waitung 18 months for these operations is bad for the person and bad for the economy.

Controversially I think the NHS should get back to its core job, saving lives and curing patients of life threatening illnesses and move from cosmetic surgery, gender changing operations, if a person needs these types of operations then go private. I'd also stop treating people that travel abroad for cosmetic surgery only to have the NHS correct the bodge work. You want this type of surgery then get insurance to cover the cost.

Sorry for the rant but hey its nearly the weekend.

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Alan L's avatar

Excellent piece of work. It’s really important that someone keep a on calling out GB news because propaganda isn’t news. If I were Labour I would employ someone to scrutinise everything that comes out of this billionaire’s mouthpiece and set out the real facts.

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Malcolm Kershaw's avatar

My grandmother worked for the NHS all her life, from it's creation to the say she retired for the final time, her third attempt to retire.

She was extremely proud of the NHS. She was responsible for developing the Glasgow cancer radiotherapy protocols, and was constantly researching treatments, and was still carrying out research at the age of 88. Today her portrait hangs in the Beatson hospital in Glasgow.

She could have made a fortune in the private sector, but that was not her, everything about her was about helping people and doing the best for the patients in her care.

She was my grandmother so it could be argued that I am biased, but to me she represented what healthcare should be, caring for people, rather than making a quick buck from others suffering.

She also demonstrated why we have got to get away from taking the NHS for granted and fight for it's survival.

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GreenerFutures's avatar

Just yesterday my daughter had to go to her local surgery in London to get the repair of a degloved index finger inspected and dressing changed. The injury occurred in Italy and her treatment there first rate.

The doctor inspected the wound and, despite signs of infection said it was OK. Daughter asked about redressing the wound and was told she had to see the Practice Nurse - unavailable until …. 1 August. The doctor refused to redress the wound he’d just inspected and turfed her out to A&E to get this done. Yes, A&E.

She waited 4hrs at A&E only to be chastised for ‘wasting their time’ (huh?) and the wound was hastily & badly dressed. Her worries about infection were dismissed - go see your GP for that. Next GP appointment … you guessed, 1 August.

Last night the dressing came off. She’s given up and has reluctantly invoked her employment PMI to get sorted out.

Whatever revisionism is happening here, there’s a big problem in the NHS if it can’t even properly inspect and dress wounds in a timely fashion.

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