When 6 million people out of a country with a population of 67 million cannot receive treatment for tormenting, torturous, tear-inducing conditions that tower over their lives every day, costing the economy millions of pounds annually, and when 1 in 10 of these patients must wait more than a year to have their complaints heard, and when Morecambe Bay, Colchester, Mid-Staff’s and Panorama’s Old Deanery scream out the agonies and the scandals of a healthcare system, should 10 Downing Street understand the need for tough measures? The National Health Service (NHS), regarded as the “best in the world” by Britons and followed even more than religion according to renowned journalist Nigel Lawson, has often been seen as a role model across the world for its uncompromising motto “Improving Lives” of people regardless of their financial, economic, political, religious, and cultural background. Is breaking up this healthcare behemoth, which also happens to be the single largest employer in the United Kingdom (UK), the real solution to the problems bulleted out above? Let us consider both sides of the coin to answer this.
Why Should the NHS Not Be Broken Up?
Founded in a war-ravaged post-war Britain where the average salary of a Briton was £8446 (house cost-£24800 and car cost-£12400), the NHS was a godsend to many people who had come home with serious maladies, injuries, and psychological infirmities from the 6-year war theatre across the world that had annihilated more people than any war preceding it. 73 tumultuous years saw the NHS expand exponentially to 1.4 million members and attain the title of being the largest employer in the United Kingdom. Would tampering with the intricacies of the UK’s largest employer be a wise choice? Would an uncertain promise of a better healthcare system to one already regarded by many as the best in the world convince 1.4 million people to leave their jobs, sit at home, and put their livelihoods and the lives of millions of their dependents on stake while bureaucracy and red tape hinder repeated attempts to achieve the stated objectives? Any reasonable Briton would refuse immediately when made to view things through this perspective.
Additionally, the data showcasing health trends since the foundation of the NHS cannot be discounted for. The NHS was founded on 5th July 1948.
Since then, the following changes in British health have occurred:
1) The number of British doctors has increased from 11,700 to 115,000
2) The number of hospital beds has decreased from 480,000 to 120,000. While this may seem like a step-back, it is just a complimentary testament to the enormous strides in medicine that have enabled pregnant women to leave hospitals in a day rather than in a week in 1948 after delivery and for a hip replacement surgery to be carried out as a day case rather than a week case thus decreasing the number of hospital beds required.
3) The life expectancy has increased from 65.9 years to 79.5 years for males and from 70.3 years to 83.1 years for females from 1948 to 2018.
4) The infant mortality rate has decreased from 36 per 1000 live births in 1948 to 3.9 per 1000 live births in 2018.
As the data and statements above highlight, many monumental leaps in British Health and many of the steep positive and negative correlations amongst the British Public coincide with the inauguration of the NHS. Should this be taken simply as a correlation rather than a causation example? Would you argue that with the rapid pace of advancements in medicine happening at the time anyways, such leaps in British Health were inevitable? Another example could be used to challenge such an assumption:
1956 saw a massive polio epidemic in the UK with almost 8000 people being confined within the grips of the iron lung for the rest of their lives. What would have been a rapidly approaching Sword of Damocles at one’s neck, however, was stopped right in its tracks by the NHS’s “Vaccinating Britain” Program that saw the switch to an oral poliomyelitis vaccine that saw vaccination rates skyrocket. The last polio case in the UK occurred in 1984 and the absence of cases today in the UK alongside the creation of the comprehensive vaccination dosage campaign for diseases such as measles, chickenpox and the whooping cough stands as a testimony to the efficacy of the vaccination program initiated. Would such a program have been initiated if there was no central authority across the country to administer it? While some may argue that this would still have been possible, the rapidity with which polio cases in the UK approached 0 after reaching its peak in 1956 could never have been achieved without the NHS, highlighting the organization’s role as not only for the treatment of bad health, but also for the promotion of good health.
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