1. To
swindle other people was, after all, the honest aim of every business man.
Only the world was always so much wickeder than one thought.
There seemed to be no limit to evil.
Bertolt Brecht1.
2. As a nail sticketh between the joinings
of the stones, so doth sin stick close to buying and selling
Ecclesiastes
3. New labour had opened up secret routes of
special access to allow select corporate chiefs to
bargain, alter or veto the government’s key decisions.
Greg Palast2
Since coming to power in 1997, New Labour has been ‘modernizing’ the
National Health Service (NHS). Essentially this modernization process has
entailed placing the management of health care delivery, in its many
different forms, in the hands of free standing agencies; private
companies, trusts, foundations, consultancies and even pharmacists3.
The changes introduced by this decentralization have broken the mould of a
system of socialized medicine, inaugurated by the first Labour Government
over half a century ago, when it acted on the Beveridge report and
nationalized the health service. Modernization has also reversed an
ideological direction and basic tenet of socialist and social democratic political parties, that the organization of health
1
Threepenny Novel. Penguin Books. Harmondsworth, England. 1973.
2 Lobbygate, Chapter 7, in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Greg
Palast, Robinson, London2003
3 In May 2004, the New Labour government became the first European
government to move statins (cholesterol lowering drugs), from the
prescription list to over the counter sales, also allowing competitive
advertising within the pharmacists. This move will wipe millions off the
prescription drugs bill, forcing patients to pay from their own pockets
for treatment. At the same time, it is a gift to the pharmaceutical industry,
which is straining at the leash to by pass doctors and all kinds of
patient– protecting legislation and sell drugs directly to the general
population. Who will the
consumer sue when they suffer serious adverse reactions, the chemist? To
whom does the patient report adverse reactions. Planning to bring
pharmacists more deeply into the NHS and make them, as it were, auxillary
doctors, began four years ago. Interestingly enough, the first pilot
scheme decided on in 2000, chose heart disease patients for their trials involving pharmacists in healthcare. See Report of
the All Parliamentary Pharmacy Group; Medicines Management in Community
Pharmacies, A Report to Health Ministers.
The Ghost Lobby and Other Mysteries of the Modern Physic Price: £3 GBP Contact
|
|