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Chris Thomas is a research and writer. His first book, The Five Health Frontiers, is out on 20 January with Pluto Press. He writes in a personal capacity.
Today’s nurses’ strike isn’t just a response to Covid and inflation – it’s the product of years of austerity and Thatcherite reforms, which have pushed the NHS and the workers who keep it running to the brink.
People are being forced to go without heat or food just as spiralling costs push a ravaged NHS even closer to the brink. The health consequences will be catastrophic – we need immediate action.
By neglecting and underfunding the National Health Service, the Tory government is pushing ever-growing numbers towards private alternatives – which amounts to healthcare privatisation by the backdoor.
Covid has proved beyond doubt that health is linked to social factors like housing, work and education. In the wake of the pandemic, it’s time for a new, comprehensive and universal approach to healthcare.
Right-wingers use today’s NHS shortcomings to argue that a public health system doesn’t work – but its failings stem from decades of pro-market reforms.
A little over 70 years ago, the NHS was founded on the principle that everyone was entitled to free, public and universal healthcare – to safeguard its future, we need to renew that vision for the modern world.
On this day in 1966, a coal slag heap collapsed in the Welsh mining village of Aberfan, killing more than 100 children. Today, it’s a powerful reminder of how the establishment fails working class communities.