private medicine

New Popular Front gains support from French health activists

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Original article by Peoples Health Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a CC licence.

French health activists stage a protest.

Social movements and trade unions in France are rallying behind the New Popular Front, which promises a genuine alternative to the far-right and liberal health policies

Trade unions and activists warn that a National Rally victory would spell disaster for public healthcare in France. If the far-right wins the upcoming election, as polls currently predict, changes would come at the expense of sexual and reproductive health services and migrant health, among other things.

Marine Le Pen’s party recently dominated the European Parliament elections, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call for a snap election, hoping to mobilize voters against the far-right. According to analysts, Macron gambled that the people of France would go to great lengths to keep the National Rally out of power, perhaps even reaffirming his mandate.

However, Macron’s policies, including privatization and commodification of health services, have fueled the far-right’s growth. His administration has caused closures of local hospitals, creating health deserts, and continues to push for more privatization, causing patient suffering. Despite the failures of this approach, liberals continue to pursue the same strategy in the current campaign, advocating for a more profit-driven logic in healthcare. The Trade Union of Health Centers’ Physicians (USMCS) stated: “We are experiencing the consequences of this policy on a daily basis. Patients suffer. We want no more of it.”

The far-right is expected to continue liberalizing the sector while introducing intolerance and xenophobia by prioritizing French citizens and marginalizing other residents. “If implemented, the [far-right policies] will pose a major risk to public health, not only for these ‘excluded’ individuals but also for the population as a whole,” USMCS warned.

“Abandoning the values of solidarity and universalism that underpin our healthcare system, a right-wing program will worsen social and territorial inequalities. We reject any program that proposes a healthcare policy based on exclusion and discrimination.”

Trade unions and organizations, united under the Tour de France pour la Santé, are backing the New Popular Front (NFP), a left-wing coalition opposing Macron’s policies as much as the far-right. The NFP plans to retract the controversial pension reform, curb living costs, and rebuild the healthcare system by recruiting healthcare workers, increasing incomes, and regulating the private sector. For example, the program states that new private clinics will only be allowed if they provide guarantees that patients will not face any out-of-pocket costs.

Read more: Left and progressives form New Popular Front to counter far-right in French elections

The USMCS emphasized that the NFP’s program is the only one to offer real prospects for healthcare reform. To support this, the Tour de France pour la Santé announced a series of actions during the election campaign, starting with an assembly in Lille on June 27, where activists will discuss the importance of resisting the far-right. Speakers will include Françoise Nay from the People’s Health Movement (PHM) France and Ramon Vila from the trade union SUD Santé Sociaux.

“Confronted with the threat of the extreme right, now more than ever, we urge citizens, trade unions, associations, mutual insurance societies, and progressive parties to unite in defending the right to health for all,” the platform said in its press release.

Ahead of the first round of the election on June 30, the National Rally leads with approximately 35% in polls, followed by the NFP at more than 29%, and Macron’s party at 19.5%. Bridging the gap between the far-right and the progressives might be possible with strong social movement support.

People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and subscription to People’s Health Dispatch, click here. 

Original article by Peoples Health Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a CC licence.

Continue ReadingNew Popular Front gains support from French health activists

Reaction to Wes Streeting comments on NHS reform and private sector involvement

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Image of the Green Party's Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

Responding to comments by the Shadow Heath Secretary saying that under a Labour government investment in the NHS would be dependent on reform and that there would be an increased role for the private sector, co-leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer, said: 

“Wes Streeting says that if the NHS doesn’t change, it will die. But it is inadequate funding that has left our NHS in a poor state of health, not lack of reform.  

“Between 2010 and 2019 the UK had a lower level of capital investment in health care and 18% lower average health spending than 14 EU countries. 

“So to say that the public is paying a heavy price for failure is an insult to hard-working NHS staff, who are doing their level best despite being overworked and underpaid. It is the failure to invest adequately and pay staff properly that is at the root of dissatisfaction with the NHS. 

“The public agrees. They don’t want endless reforms; neither do they share the Conservative or Labour appetite for creeping privatisation. They want the current model to work and to see the NHS available to everyone free of charge and primarily funded through taxes. A tax on the super-rich billionaires and multi-millionaires can provide the funds needed to fix our cherished NHS.    

“The Green Party has never had any truck with the profit motive in health care and will continue to push for a fully publicly funded NHS.” 

Continue ReadingReaction to Wes Streeting comments on NHS reform and private sector involvement

Natalie Bennett: The state of our NHS is down to long-term political failure

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/02/natalie-bennett-the-state-of-our-nhs-is-down-to-long-term-political-failure/

The Green Party holds that the profit motive should have no place in our health care – in any form of care

Natalie Bennett is a Green Party member of the House of Lords. She was leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012-16.

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Perhaps because it is a continuing story of disaster, there’s few stories now also about the impact of privatisation, despite the level continuing to rise. In 2022 nearly 10 per cent of treatments for NHS patients, more than 2 million people, were provided by private companies, up from 3 per cent in 2011. Yet there’s evidence that in areas where privatisation is at the highest levels the outcomes are dire – in the form of more people dying from treatable causes.

In mental health care – in the face of terribly tragedies, and much higher levels of privatisation, with public provision gutted – there’s been more attention. Now 55 per cent of under-18 inpatient mental health care is delivered by for-profit providers.

Meanwhile, we are all continuing to pay for the disaster of Labour Party-promoted Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes. That sees some hospitals paying a sixth of their total budget on payments, frequently to offshore hedge funds, and from a £13 billion original investment a final bill that will reach £80 billion, the equivalent of £1,200 for each person in the UK.

The Green Party holds that the profit motive should have no place in our health care – in any form of care – but the current largest opposition party, Labour, appears to be a fan of even further steps of privatisation.

There’s also long term underfunding, with austerity in the face of a growing and ageing population having disastrous impacts. Provision for investment on infrastructure and technology collapsed; the RAAC crisis was just one visible tip of a very large iceberg of decline.

And that austerity saw a collapse in real terms of the pay of nurses and doctors, which has seen a huge exodus overseas and to other jobs, meaning huge understaffing, which puts massive pressure on remaining staff.

Make no mistake. The state of the system is not the fault of medical staff. It is not the fault of managers. It is a long-term political failure, the application of ideology over evidence, the interests of private companies over public good.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/02/natalie-bennett-the-state-of-our-nhs-is-down-to-long-term-political-failure/

Continue ReadingNatalie Bennett: The state of our NHS is down to long-term political failure

NHS to investigate Palantir after spy tech firm plotted influencer marketing campaign to counter critics

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/nhs-investigate-palantir-spy-tech-firm-plotted-influencer-marketing-campaign

Health workers form a blockade in Soho Square during a protest outside the London headquarters of US tech giant Palantir, which was awarded a £330 million contract by NHS England last month to create a new data management system called the Federated Data Platform, December 21, 2023

THE NHS is set to probe potential contract breaches by US spy tech firm Palantir after the company plotted an influencer marketing campaign to shut down criticism from campaigners.

Palantir failed to seek prior approval from NHS England for a marketing campaign promoting its £330 million contract to run a data platform for the health service.

The contract sparked fierce criticism from campaigners who cited privacy concerns over sharing medical data with the secretive firm, which was first funded by the CIA.

According to leaked emails, Palantir hired PR agency Topham Guerin, which previously ran campaigns for the Conservative Party, and marketing agency Disrupt, to approach influencers.

The brief outlined a campaign to “clear up misinformation relating to some recent data privacy concerns that were shared in the UK press.”

It went on to accuse The Good Law Project, which flagged concerns over safeguarding data, of “spreading fear.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/nhs-investigate-palantir-spy-tech-firm-plotted-influencer-marketing-campaign

Continue ReadingNHS to investigate Palantir after spy tech firm plotted influencer marketing campaign to counter critics

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Wants to Continue Destroying the NHS

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https://jacobin.com/2023/06/labour-party-uk-nhs-health-care-privatization/

NHS sign

If it wins the next general election in the UK, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party could try to fix the damage inflicted on the National Health Service by years of Tory austerity. But Labour seems set on further privatizing the NHS.

Everywhere you look in the health service, the signs of thirteen years of austerity and willful Tory neglect are apparent. The Tories have, throughout their time in government, allowed the National Health Service (NHS) to go to rack and ruin, sending staff morale crashing through the floor and putting patients’ lives at risk.     

The waiting list for surgery or specialist clinical care — partly a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic but exacerbated by years of chronic underfunding — stands at a record high of 7.22 million. Millions of patients, meanwhile, are struggling to get general practitioner (GP) appointments due to the immense pressures on NHS primary care.  

Ambulance waiting times are alarmingly long: in December, response times in England were the worst on record, while the number of patients waiting twelve hours or more to be admitted to accidents and emergency department (A&E) also hit a new all-time high. NHS dentistry, in addition, is in a state of almost-total collapse. 

Both opinion polls and the recent local elections in England indicate that the Tories are on track to lose the next general election. While the differences between Keir Starmer’s Labour and Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are narrowing all the time, it might at least be expected that the Labour Party would repair the worst of the damage done since 2010. The NHS remains the great survivor of postwar social democracy. But statements from the Labour front bench suggest otherwise. 

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https://jacobin.com/2023/06/labour-party-uk-nhs-health-care-privatization/

Continue ReadingKeir Starmer’s Labour Party Wants to Continue Destroying the NHS